Department of Health and Social Care

NHS: Charter for Families Bereaved through Public Tragedy

Gareth Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether organisations within the NHS are required to sign the Hillsborough Charter.

Andrew Stephenson: There is no requirement for organisations within the National Health Service to sign the Hillsborough Charter but, in line with the Government’s response to Bishop James Jones’ review of the Hillsborough families’ experiences, we will encourage the NHS to adopt the Charter and commit to learn the lessons of the Hillsborough disaster.

NHS: Software

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many full-time equivalent staff have worked on (a) developing and (b) maintaining the My Planned Care platform since 2022-23.

Andrew Stephenson: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Integrated Care Boards: Finance

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what were the total financial deficits of each NHS Integrated Care Board in England for the (a) 2022-23 and (b) 2021-22 financial year.

Andrew Stephenson: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

NHS Trusts: Finance

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the financial deficit of each NHS trust was in each of the last five financial years.

Andrew Stephenson: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Radiology: Telemedicine

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the cost to the public purse was of outsourcing radiology scans to external teleradiology companies in each of the last five years.

Andrew Stephenson: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Department of Health and Social Care: Ministers' Private Offices

Sarah Olney: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 2 February 2024 to Question 11392 on Department of Health and Social Care: Ministers' Private Offices, what the cost was of the refurbishment to ministerial offices in 2023.

Andrew Stephenson: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Family Practitioner Services: Visual Impairment

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS GP appointments for patients with eye conditions there were in the last 12 months.

Andrea Leadsom: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Maternity Services: Ethnic Groups

Theresa Villiers: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had recent discussions with NHS England on improving awareness of inequalities in black and Asian maternal health outcomes amongst clinicians.

Maria Caulfield: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Obesity

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many meetings she has held with representatives from obesity charities and organisations since being appointed.

Andrea Leadsom: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Fast Food

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many times she has met with representatives of the fast food industry since she was appointed.

Andrew Stephenson: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

General Medical Council and Health and Care Professions Council: Charter for Families Bereaved through Public Tragedy

Gareth Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had discussions with the (a) General Medical Council and (b) Health and Care Professions Council on signing the Hillsborough Charter.

Andrew Stephenson: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Dental Services: Finance

Preet Kaur Gill: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the gross annual budget was for NHS dental services before deductions for (a) underspends and (b) underperformance for each year from 2010-11 to the latest year for which data isavailable.

Andrea Leadsom: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Hospital Wards: Gender

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many single sex ward breaches there have been in the NHS in England in each of the last 10 years.

Maria Caulfield: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Mental Health

Dr Rosena Allin-Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of the total morbidity burden in England is accounted for by mental health.

Maria Caulfield: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Ophthalmic Services

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many GP referrals of patients to eye specialists there were in the last 12 months.

Andrea Leadsom: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

NHS 111: Dental Health

Preet Kaur Gill: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many calls NHS 111 received about dental (a) pain and (b) other problems in each of the last five years.

Andrew Stephenson: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Mental Health Services: Children and Young People

Dr Rosena Allin-Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much and what proportion of NHS expenditure on mental health services was spent on children and young people’s mental health services in the latest period for which data is available.

Maria Caulfield: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Knee Replacements: Out-patients

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of knee replacement operations do not require an overnight stay in hospital.

Andrew Stephenson: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Mental Health Services: Expenditure

Dr Rosena Allin-Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much and what proportion of NHS expenditure was spent on mental health services in the latest period for which data is available.

Maria Caulfield: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Health Services and Social Services: Cybersecurity

Julie Elliott: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much has been spent on improving cyber security of the health and care system in each year since 2016; and how much and what proportion of that expenditure was (a) internal and (b) on contracted suppliers.

Andrew Stephenson: The information requested on cyber spending covers sensitive details about cyber security investment for the National Health Service. Releasing this information at the level of any annual breakdown may assist in determining the effectiveness of detecting cyber-attacks on the NHS, and could compromise measures to protect NHS IT systems, leaving them vulnerable to future cyber-attacks.However, in total, £338 million has been invested nationally to improve the cyber security of the health and care system between 2016 and 2023. This is core spend and excludes investment by local organisations, and wider national or local IT investment which supports better security, such as Microsoft licensing for NHS organisations.Cyber improvement programmes will always seek to use internal resource where skillsets are available. External subject matter expertise support is brought in to support delivery where these are not available within the Department.

Caesarean Sections

Tulip Siddiq: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of hospital births in 2023 were via caesarean sections.

Maria Caulfield: The information is not available in the format requested, as data is only available from January 2023 to November 2023. Provisional data from NHS England indicates that there were 509,647 birth episodes in total during this period, of which there was a valid delivery method recorded for 402,571 episodes. 158,562, or 39%, of these births were recorded by delivery method of caesarean.

Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme: Coronavirus

Alexander Stafford: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much money has been awarded by the vaccine damage payment scheme to claimants who suffered disabilities as a result of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Alexander Stafford: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many claimants to the Vaccine Damage Payment scheme (a) have been and (b) are due to be awarded money for a life-changing disability as a result of a covid-19 vaccine as of 5 February 2024.

Maria Caulfield: As of 5 February 2024, 163 claims to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme relating to COVID-19 have received an award. 154 of these claimants have received their payment, and in the remaining nine cases, the NHS Business Services Authority is awaiting relevant information from the claimant in order to process the payment. This gives a total of £18,480,000 paid out to successful COVID-19 related claims, with an additional £1,080,000 pending.

Mental Health Services: Children and Young People

Peter Gibson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2024 to Question 10927 on Mental Health Services: Children and Young People, what the average waiting time was from referral to assessment for a child referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in the latest period for which data is available; and how many children are on a waiting list in each local authority within the NHS North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board area.

Maria Caulfield: The information regarding the average waiting time from referral to assessment for a child referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, in the latest period for which data is available, as well as how many children are on waiting lists in each local authority within the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board, is shown in the attached tables.PQ12660 - tables (xlsx, 46.7KB)

Liver Diseases: Darlington

Peter Gibson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2024 to Question 10925 on Liver Diseases: Darlington, how much and what proportion of the £30,000 for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust will be spent in Darlington.

Andrew Stephenson: The breakdown of funding requested is not held by the Department.

Alcoholism: Liver Diseases

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will introduce (a) liver and (b) blood tests for (i) young and (ii) any other people with high alcohol use.

Andrew Stephenson: Decisions on the use of diagnostic tests for individual patients both under and over 16 years old, are the responsibility of a referring clinician or a healthcare professional, where delegated, taking into account local priorities and clinical guidance.Alcohol-related liver disease is relatively uncommon in patients under 16 years old as it usually results from several years of heavy drinking. There are no National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines and guidance, recommending the use of liver and blood tests for young people.NICE has made the following recommendations about the use of liver and blood tests for patients over 16 years old: for adults referred to specialist alcohol services, it recommends considering blood tests to help identify physical health needs, but to not use blood tests routinely for the identification and diagnosis of alcohol use disorders; and it recommends liver testing for all men who regularly drink more than 50 units of alcohol per week or women who drink more than 35 units per week. However, routine liver blood tests should not be used to rule out liver fibrosis and cirrhosis.NHS England is currently reviewing existing liver diagnosis pathways as part of its wider diagnostic transformation work, to determine what the best approach should be to identify patients at an earlier stage of liver disease, through a liver pathway starting in primary care and involving pathology labs and community diagnostic centres. This will likely include a combination of blood tests and transient elastography.

Health Services: Waiting Lists

Dr Neil Hudson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to reduce waiting times for (a) urgent and (b) non-urgent referrals of patients from General Practice to hospitals in (i) Cumbria and (ii) England.

Andrew Stephenson: Cutting waiting lists is one of this Prime Minister’s top priorities. We are making good progress on tackling the longest waits, and ensuring patients get the care they need when they need it. That is why we have published the elective recovery plan, which sets clear ambitions to eliminate long waits for planned National Health Service treatment. The overall vision is to eradicate waits of longer than a year for elective care by March 2025. To facilitate this across elective services, we are increasing activity, with plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25. This will expand capacity though creating a new network of community diagnostic centres, including three in Cumbria, and maximising all available independent sector capacity. We are managing demand through specialised advice in primary care and giving patients more control over where they receive their care. We are also increasing productivity through transforming outpatient services, developing new surgical hubs to increase theatre productivity, and working actively with trusts to support and challenge their performance. The latest published figures show that the 62-day backlog has fallen 36% since its peak in the pandemic. The NHS introduced the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS), which aims to ensure patients have cancer diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days of urgent suspected cancer referral from a general practice or screening services. Latest FDS performance was at 71.9% in November 2023 against the national standard of 75%.To achieve the FDS target, NHS England are streamlining cancer pathways, including timed cancer pathways, to speed up diagnosis in the three key cancer pathways: lower gastrointestinal, prostate, and skin.We are also implementing non symptom specific pathways for patients who present with non-specific symptoms, or combinations of non-specific symptoms, that can indicate several different cancers.

Breast Cancer: Screening

Peter Gibson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of availability of follow up MRI scans for women who have undergone mastectomies to tackle lobular breast cancer.

Andrew Stephenson: £2.3 billion was awarded at Spending Review 2021 to transform diagnostic services over the next three years. Most of this will help increase the number of community diagnostic centres up to 160 by March 2025, expanding and protecting elective planned diagnostic services. The remainder of the funding will increase capacity for imaging, including MRI scans, endoscopy as well as lung and mammography screening, and improve digital diagnostics.Growth in the MRI asset base and increased use of MRI acceleration software is creating additional capacity for approximately 572,000 MRI examinations per annum within the NHS in England.The Department and NHS England have taken steps to improve the treatment of invasive lobular breast cancer (ILBC) but are aware that more needs to be done. In September 2022, the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre announced funding from NHS England and the Welsh Government of £5.4 million to support delivery of six new national cancer audits. Two of these focus on breast cancer, one on primary and one on metastatic, and include ILBC.Additionally, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) supports breast cancer research funded by research partners in the charity and public sectors. Over the last five years, the NIHR Clinical Research Network has supported 10 ILBC-related studies.

Radiology: Telemedicine

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the cost to the public purse was of outsourcing radiology scans to external teleradiology companies in each of the last five years.

Andrew Stephenson: In the years 2018-2019 to 2022-23, the NHS spent £1,096,083,822 on outsourcing of radiology scans. This represents 7.9% of the total cost of all imaging services across the 5 year period.Outsourcing of teleradiology scans by the NHS is being used to help deliver NHS targets on diagnostic waiting times and activity, including diagnosis of illnesses such as cancer. Outsourcing allows the NHS to maintain important diagnostic activity whilst the government’s investments to build up diagnostic capacity, including through an increased number of Community Diagnostic Centres, continue to progress.Table 1: Total Cost of Outsourcing Radiology Scans to External Teleradiology Companies from 2018-19 to 2022-23.Financial yearTotal Cost of Outsourcing2022-23£368,858,8382021-22£241,015,5742020-21£170,131,1152019-20£192,261,0282018-19£123,817,267Total£1,096,083,822

Coronavirus: Vaccination

Fleur Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many adverse events were registered with covid-19 vaccines from batch number 4120Z001 via the yellow card scheme; and whether more serious adverse events were registered with covid-19 vaccines from batch number 4120Z001 via the yellow card scheme than other batches of the Oxford-Astra Zeneca covid-19 vaccine.

Maria Caulfield: The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) continuously monitors the safety of vaccines through a variety of pharmacovigilance approaches including the Yellow Card scheme. As part of our signal detection processes all adverse reaction reports received by the Yellow Card scheme are assessed and cumulative information reviewed at regular intervals. Our analysis of the Yellow Card reports accounts for product batch number.The MHRA has received 7112 spontaneous suspected adverse drug reaction (ADR) reports in the United Kingdom relating to the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine with batch number 4120Z001 up to and including 17 January 2024. Our analysis of the Yellow Card reports including review of serious adverse reactions reported has not resulted in any safety concerns with the batch number 4120Z001 for the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine.Not all batches of the COVID-19 vaccines are the same size, and some batches may have had more wastage than other batches or be distributed more widely outside of the UK. Therefore, we would not expect the number of ADR reports for all batches to be the same as they have been administered to different numbers of patients. Furthermore, different batches would have been used at different stages of the vaccination campaign, and in different patient groups, which could also impact reporting rates.

Antibiotics: Drug Resistance

Ruth Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to reduce the potential impact of increased antimicrobial resistance caused by the overuse of antibiotics on industrial farms on human health.

Maria Caulfield: The Government takes a cross-governmental, One-Health approach to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as set out in the UK 5-year National Action Plan for antimicrobial resistance. Through the National Action Plan, activity is delivered across the four nations of the United Kingdom on human health, animal health, food, environment, research, and surveillance. The plan is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-5-year-action-plan-for-antimicrobial-resistance-2019-to-2024 The UK is committed to reducing unnecessary use of antibiotics in animals to reduce the risk of the development and spread of AMR in animals and humans. The recently published UK Veterinary Antimicrobial Resistance and Sales Surveillance report shows that sales of antibiotics in food producing animals are at their lowest ever level, with a 59% reduction since 2014. The report is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/veterinary-antimicrobial-resistance-and-sales-surveillance-2022

Menopause: Health Services

Simon Jupp: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help improve access to NHS menopause services.

Maria Caulfield: The menopause is a priority area within the Women’s Health Strategy. The NHS England National Menopause Care Improvement Programme is working to improve clinical menopause care in England and reduce disparities in access to treatment. NHS England is working with integrated care systems in the Midlands, piloting new guidance to support teams in primary care better to recognise and treat menopause symptoms.We are investing £25 million in women’s health hubs, so that women can get better access to care for essential services such as menstrual problems, contraception and the menopause.We have also reduced the cost of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) prescriptions through a bespoke HRT Prescription Prepayment Certificate. More than 500,000 HRT Prescription Prepayment Certificates have now been purchased since the launch on 1 April 2023, meaning women who pay for prescriptions, pay less than £20 for all of their HRT prescriptions for a year. The average saving is estimated to be around £30 a year with total savings of approximately £13 million.

Mental Health: Cost of Living

Munira Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the cost of living on the mental health of young people.

Maria Caulfield: The Department is acutely aware of the impact of the cost of living on mental health. Information on the support available to help with the cost of living is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/cost-of-livingThrough the NHS Long Term Plan, the Government continues to expand and transform mental health services in England, so that more young people get the support they need for their mental health. We will also help thousands of young people into work through the £795 million expansion of NHS Talking Therapies and Individual Placement and Support schemes.Furthermore, there are around 65 locally funded Early Support Hubs in England. These hubs will support young people aged 11 to 25 years old who are experiencing anxiety or stress, including those who need support around financial circumstances. On 25 October we announced £4.92 million of new funding to deliver and evaluate innovative community-based mental health and wellbeing support for young people at 10 sites across England until the end of 2024/25.

Menopause: Health Services

Simon Jupp: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of NHS menopause services available in Devon.

Maria Caulfield: No specific assessment has been made. The menopause is a priority area within the Women’s Health Strategy. The NHS England National Menopause Care Improvement Programme is working to improve clinical menopause care in England, and to reduce disparities in access to treatment. This programme has already delivered training packages for healthcare professionals, and a self-care fact sheet for women. NHS England is also working with integrated care systems in the Midlands, piloting new guidance to support teams in primary care to better recognise and treat menopause symptoms. We are investing £25 million in women’s health hubs nationally, so that women can get better access to care for essential services such as menstrual problems, contraception and the menopause.The two priority areas for the pilot women’s health hubs in Devon are services for a menopause pathway and improving access to long-acting reversible contraception, including for non-contraceptive reasons such as the menopause.

Cancer: Screening

Elliot Colburn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of variations in access to genetic and genomic testing for cancer through the NHS Genomics Medicine Service; and what steps her Department is taking to reduce these variations.

Andrew Stephenson: The seven NHS Genomic Medicine Service Alliances raise awareness of genomics among healthcare professionals and support delivery of equitable access to genomic testing, clinical genetics, and genomic counselling services. NHS England has also established the NHS Genomics Ethics, Equity and Legal Advisory Group to ensure that the NHS Genomic Medicine Service (NHS GMS) provides equitable access to all patients. The group will identify and review appropriate datasets to inform health inequalities analysis of the NHS GMS, and identify actions to address inequalities.

Smoking: Health Services

Mary Glindon: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance her Department has issued to local authority smoking cessation services on whether they can offer disposable vapes through the Swap to Stop scheme; and whether her Department has received representations on the distribution of disposable vapes by local authorities from Yorkshire Cancer Research.

Andrea Leadsom: We launched the national Swap to Stop scheme in November 2023 to provide local authorities up to one million free vape starter kits, alongside the provision of behavioural support, to help smokers quit smoking. Disposable vapes are not available under the national Swap to Stop scheme. The Department has not received representations from Yorkshire Cancer Research on the distribution of disposable vapes to local authorities.

Nitrous Oxide: Misuse

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to take further steps to help prevent the use of nitrous oxide.

Andrea Leadsom: The Government controlled nitrous oxide as a Class C drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, on 8 November 2023. We are keeping implementation of the ban under review with police forces and key stakeholders and have committed to publishing a broad-ranging assessment of the effect of the control of nitrous oxide under this act, due to be published three years from the date of its control in November 2026.We have worked with the Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education Association to develop lesson plans on drugs, alcohol and tobacco, which include specific references to the dangers of nitrous oxide. The lesson plans target primary and secondary school students, teaching them how to manage influences and pressure, and to keep themselves healthy and safe. They are available at the following link:https://pshe-association.org.uk/drugeducationThe Government also has a drug information and advice service called Talk to FRANK, which aims to reduce drug and alcohol misuse and its harms by providing awareness to young people, parents and concerned others. Information on nitrous oxide and the danger of its misuse is available at the following link:https://www.talktofrank.com/drug/nitrous-oxide

Cancer: Medical Treatments

Elliot Colburn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the impact of trends in average waiting times for biomarker and genomic testing on waiting times for cancer treatment.

Andrew Stephenson: NHS England has implemented capturing of Patient Level Contract Monitoring data across the National Health Service Genomic Laboratory Hubs (GLHs) to facilitate a national approach to reporting and validating activity data and turnaround times. This will enable NHS England to understand activity volumes, detect any backlogs, and institute recovery. NHS England undertakes a quarterly assurance process with each of the NHS GLHs to monitor improvements in turnaround times to ensure these are being met in every region and for all patients.NHS England is also undertaking a programme of work alongside clinical experts, including the Medical Royal Colleges, to establish clinically relevant cancer turnaround times across diagnosis, prognosis, treatment determining clinical use cases and optimising cancer pathways to ensure genomic test results are provided in a clinically relevant timeframe.

Genomics: Screening

Elliot Colburn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to ensure future NHS genomic testing publications include data on access to different cancer tests based on an individual's (a) ethnicity, (b) socioeconomic status and (c) type of cancer test.

Andrew Stephenson: National Health Service genomic testing activity data, collected from all seven NHS Genomic Laboratory Hubs, is available on the NHS England website. NHS England will continue to publish this data on a quarterly basis. The published data indicates the total volume of genomic testing activity completed per month, broken down into cancer and rare and inherited disease. The cancer data is further separated into nine different categories of cancer. NHS England is looking into separating this further if there are other specific categories of cancer test type which would be of interest. The published data does not currently include data broken down by ethnicity or socioeconomic status, but NHS England’s ambition is to improve and expand future publications of the data, which may include areas relating to health inequalities.

General Practitioners

Dr Neil Hudson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to support General Practices at risk of closure.

Andrea Leadsom: General Practices (GPs) close for a variety of reasons, including mergers or retirement. A reduction in GP numbers does not mean a reduction in the quality of care. When a GP does close, patients are informed of the closure and advised to register at another local practice of their choice within their area.The closure of a GP surgery is an issue that is considered and decided upon by local commissioners, following an application from a GP provider. It is for local commissioners to determine what services and care pathways are put in place, in order to best serve the needs of their patient population.

Alcoholic Drinks: Sales

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to restrict the location of sale of alcohol.

Andrea Leadsom: We have no plans to further restrict the location of sale of alcohol. The Licensing Act 2003 regulates the sale and supply of alcohol. The Act already allows individual premises and licensing authorities to introduce appropriate safeguards as they deem necessary. Licensing authorities consider applications on a case-by-case basis and can impose conditions on the terms of a license, for example limiting hours of sale, as they deem appropriate.The Government takes a wide-ranging approach to addressing alcohol harms, including through commitments in the landmark 10-year drug strategy and NHS Long Term Plan, for example an ambitious programme to establish specialist alcohol care teams in the 25% hospitals with the highest rates of alcohol dependence-related admissions, alcohol-mortality, and deprivation.

Infant Foods: Sales

Alberto Costa: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of allowing the use of loyalty card points to buy baby formula.

Andrea Leadsom: Regulations relating to infant formula set robust nutritional and compositional standards which mean that all infant formula for sale in the United Kingdom are suitable for meeting the nutritional requirements of babies, regardless of price or brand. The regulations also restrict the inappropriate marketing and promotion of infant formula so as not to discourage breastfeeding, which evidence shows delivers the best health outcomes for babies and mothers.The Department has published guidance on infant and follow-on formula and food for special medical purposes which advises businesses on the implementation of the regulations. Where loyalty or reward card schemes are being used to induce the sale of infant formula, this is prohibited under the regulations. Loyalty and reward card schemes vary between retailers, and it is for businesses to ensure that their activities are in compliance with the regulations. The guidance is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infant-and-follow-on-formula-and-food-for-special-medical-purposes/commission-delegated-regulation-eu-2016127-supplementing-regulation-eu-no-6092013-guidance#commission-delegated-regulation-eu-2016127

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Drugs

Stephen Kinnock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will create a long-term strategy to ensure supply of key medication for ADHD.

Andrew Stephenson: Disruptions to the supply of medicines used for the management of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been primarily driven by issues which have resulted in capacity constraints at key manufacturing sites. The Department has been working closely with the respective manufacturers, and some issues have now been resolved. However, we know that there continue to be disruptions to the supply of some other medicines, which should be largely resolved by April 2024. We have also added ADHD products to the list of medicines that cannot be exported from, or hoarded in, the United Kingdom, to protect supplies for UK patients. We understand how frustrating and distressing medicine supply issues can be and want to assure you that we are working with the respective manufacturers to resolve the issues with ADHD medicine supply in the UK as soon as possible, and to help ensure patients are able to access these medicines in the short and long term.While we cannot always prevent supply issues from occurring, the Department has a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise and help mitigate risks to patients. There is a team within the Department that deals specifically with medicine supply problems and which works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the pharmaceutical industry, NHS England, devolved administrations, and others operating in the supply chain to help prevent shortages and to ensure that the risks to patients are minimised when shortages do arise.

Maternity Services: Ethnic Groups

Theresa Villiers: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will provide additional funding for research into the development of effective interventions to help tackle disparities in maternal health outcomes for black and Asian women.

Andrew Stephenson: The Department funds research in maternal and neonatal health through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including disparities in maternal health outcomes for black and Asian women.In January my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced the first ever NIHR Challenge, backed by £50 million, to task researchers and policymakers with finding new ways to tackle maternity disparities. We expect the funding call to launch in spring 2024.

Streptococcus: Screening

Mr Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when she expects to receive the Group B Streptococcus cluster randomised trial results.

Andrew Stephenson: I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 15 January 2024 to Question 8936.

Pancreatic Cancer: East Ham

Sir Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to improve pancreatic cancer outcomes in East Ham constituency.

Andrew Stephenson: NHS England is delivering a range of interventions that are expected to increase early diagnosis and improve outcomes for those with pancreatic cancer across England, including the East Ham constituency. This includes: providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for those at inherited high-risk to identify lesions before they develop into cancer and diagnose cancers sooner; creating new pathways to support faster referral routes for people with non-specific symptoms that could be linked to a range of cancer types; and increasing direct access for general practitioners to diagnostic tests.To increase early diagnosis, NHS England are implementing non-symptom specific pathways (NSS) for patients who present with non-specific symptoms, or combinations of non-specific symptoms, to receive the right tests at the right time. There are currently 113 NSS pathways live with the aim to have full national coverage by 2025.NHS England is also funding a new audit into pancreatic cancer, the aim of which is to provide regular and timely evidence to cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, to increase the consistency of access to treatments and to stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. The Royal College of Surgeons began work on this audit in October 2022 and a scoping exercise in consultation with key stakeholders has taken place to shape the direction of the audit. The first report is expected in October 2024.In addition, the Getting It Right First Time team in NHS England is undertaking a deep dive into pancreatic cancer, which will highlight actions National Health Service providers need to take to improve services, as well as gathering examples of good practice to share.

NHS: Staff

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many staff have been provided with a NHS Digital Staff Passport as of 31 January 2024.

Andrew Stephenson: The first wave of the pilot scheme for the NHS Digital Staff Passport was launched in December 2023. Four National Health Service trusts volunteered to be part of the scheme.The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out that on successful completion of the scheme’s pilot phase, integrated care systems will be encouraged to adopt the NHS Digital Staff Passport promptly. A full rollout of the NHS Digital Staff Passport is expected to be in place by August 2025.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Health Education

Stephen Kinnock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will create a long-term strategy for raising awareness of ADHD in women and young girls.

Stephen Kinnock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will create a long-term strategy to help people with ADHD to access medication they need.

Stephen Kinnock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will create a long-term strategy to help prevent misdiagnosis of ADHD amongst women and young girls.

Maria Caulfield: The Department has no current plans to create a long-term strategy specifically for access to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medication, nor for raising awareness of ADHD or preventing misdiagnosis of ADHD in women and young girls.It is the responsibility of local commissioners to make appropriate provisions available to meet the health and care needs of their local population. With respect to assessment, diagnosis and treatment for ADHD, integrated care boards, NHS trusts and health professionals should have due regard to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline, NG87: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: diagnosis and management.This guideline aims to improve recognition and diagnosis of ADHD, specifically highlighting the importance of recognising ADHD in women and girls, and to improve the quality of care and support that people of all ages who are diagnosed with ADHD receive.The Women’s Health Strategy for England sets out our plans for boosting health outcomes for women and girls and improving how the health and care system listens to women. Improving information provision for women and girls is a priority. In July 2023, we launched a women’s health area on the National Health Service website. This brings together over 100 topics, including ADHD, and our ambition is for the NHS website to be the first port of call for women and girls seeking information.The NICE guideline also covers considerations on pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for ADHD. The guideline states that for children aged five years old and over and for adults, medication should be offered if ADHD symptoms are still causing a significant impairment in at least one domain, after environmental modifications have been implemented and reviewed. Overall, the decision and timescale for initiating medication should be a clinical decision based on the individual patient.We are aware of current disruptions to the supply of medicines used for the management of ADHD. The Department has been working closely with the respective manufacturers and some issues have now been resolved. However, we know that there continue to be disruptions to some other medicines which should be largely resolved by April 2024.

Patient Choice Schemes

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the guidance entitled Elective recovery taskforce: implementation plan, published on 4 August 2023, what the baseline position is for how many patients are accessing choice.

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information her Department holds on the number and proportion of patients that were able to discuss with their GP which (a) hospital and (b) clinic they would attend for their first outpatient appointment in the last six months.

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of how many patients are being offered a choice between hospital and clinic for their first outpatient appointment each month.

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of how many patients are aware, before visiting their GP, that they may have a choice of hospital or clinic for their first outpatient appointment.

Andrew Stephenson: Last year, the Government set out how it will make it easier for patients to exercise their choice by improving the NHS App, increasing choice for patients already on waiting lists, and raising awareness of patients’ right to choose.At the point of referral, for example at a general practice (GP) appointment, patients will be actively offered a list of providers which are clinically appropriate for their condition. This will be a minimum of five providers where possible. Patients will also be informed of their right to choose and encouraged to raise this at the time of the referral.Since the commitments made by the Government in May 2023, we have seen an increase in the number of patients being offered choice at the point of referral. The Department does not hold data regarding patients choosing between a hospital and clinic for their first outpatient appointment each month. The Department has also not made an estimate of how many patients were aware, before visiting their GP, of their right to choose the provider for their first outpatient appointment.In autumn last year, the Department ran a press partnership campaign to raise awareness and increase understanding of choice. Furthermore, the Department has recently launched a marketing campaign, aimed at all adults, to increase awareness of a patient's right to choose where they receive their hospital care, as well as encourage more people to actively make a choice.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Imports: Disease Control

Stella Creasy: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the oral contribution of 19 January 2024 by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on Border Target Operating Model: Health Certificates and SMEs, Official Report column 1216, what the common user charge for imports into the UK will be; and when he plans to apply it.

Mark Spencer: Defra consulted last year on the proposed Common User Charge (CUC) to recover operating costs at Government-run Border Control Posts. It invited views on the principles, methodology and indicative rates for the Common User Charge to determine fair and reasonable charges. Defra will use feedback to inform the final policy, which we expect to publish shortly. Commercial BCP fees are a business decision for the operators of those sites.

Imports: Disease Control

Stella Creasy: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of 19 January 2024 in the debate on Border Target Operating Model: Health Certificates and SMEs, Official Report, column 1214, what his latest estimate is of the date by which the single trade window will be operational.

Mark Spencer: The Single Trade Window will be delivered through a series of releases, each one adding new features and delivering an improved user experience. As set out in the Border Target Operating Model, the first release of STW functionality will be made available for public use ahead of October 2024. The STW could be fully operational in 2027 but remains subject to future legislative and funding decisions.

Food: Imports

Stella Creasy: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the potential impact of the Border Target Operating Model on food price inflation in (a) 2024, (b) 2025 and (c) 2026.

Mark Spencer: Initial analysis has indicated that the policies introduced under the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM)would lead to an approximate increase in consumer food price inflation of less than 0.2% over a 3-year period. The cost of BTOM controls is equivalent to 0.4% of the UK’s agri-food Gross Value Added of £127bn in 2021, which serves as a proxy for food prices. An outbreak of a major disease could have a much more significant impact. The 2001 outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease cost £12.8bn in 2022 prices, £4.8bn of which was cost to Government and £8bn cost to the private sector.

Food: Imports

Stella Creasy: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Border Target Operating Model on levels of food supply in (a) 2024, (b) 2025 and (c) 2026.

Mark Spencer: The resilience and reliability of food supply chains is a key objective of the Government as set out in last year’s Government Food Strategy. In implementing this new control regime for the first time on EU imports, we will carefully monitor the range of potential risks, including those that may impact food supply-chains. We will work with importers to try to manage those risks in a structured way. We recognise that this new model for importing Sanitary and Phytosanitary goods will require some businesses and their supply-chains to adapt their business models. We do not expect food shortages.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: ICT

Dame Siobhain McDonagh: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many digital roles within his Department are vacant.

Mark Spencer: Defra’s Digital, Data and Technology Services has 240 approved vacancies. This represents 19% of 1,285 full time equivalent. 206 of these vacancies are roles on the Government Digital and Data framework.

Dangerous Dogs

Preet Kaur Gill: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to support disabled people who own assistance dogs which are (a) XL Bullies or (b) dogs which may be misidentified as XL Bullies.

Mark Spencer: We have engaged with stakeholders on this issue and we are not aware of any assistance dogs that are XL Bully type dogs. All XL Bully owners will be able to keep their dogs as long as they have applied for a Certificate of Exemption since 31 January 2024 and adhere to strict rules such as the dog being microchipped and kept on a lead and muzzled when in public.

Dangerous Dogs

Dr Luke Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to help the veterinary sector process confirmation of neutering forms for XL bully breed owners before 1 February.

Mark Spencer: Since 31 January 2024, owners are required to apply for a Certificate of Exemption if they wish to keep their XL Bully dog. Owners must provide evidence of neutering to Defra to ensure that the Certificate of Exemption remains valid, and we have provided an extended period for this to be arranged. We have produced guidance for vets on this process and are continuing to engage with the veterinary sector to monitor veterinary capacity.

UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Caroline Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his planned timetable is for meetings between the European Commission and the supervisory bodies of the United Kingdom as required by Article 395 of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement; and how these bodies will be defined.

Mark Spencer: Article 395 of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) states that the European Commission and supervisory bodies of the UK shall meet regularly. The date of the first meeting is to be agreed with the European Commission. The Article concerns cooperation on the effective monitoring and enforcement of environment and climate laws, and therefore meetings may include a range of public bodies in the UK that have this remit including the UK Government, the Devolved Governments and the Office for Environmental Protection and its equivalents across the UK. The UK is committed to effective implementation of the TCA and to implementing our world-leading environmental protection laws.

Convention on Biological Diversity

Ruth Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with his international counterparts on preparation for COP16.

Olivia Blake: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with his counterparts in other countries on COP16 to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Rebecca Pow: Ministers and senior officials across Government, led by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, are in close and ongoing contact with their global counterparts about preparation for COP16. In addition, the Environment Secretary and Lord Benyon spoke to a number of their international opposites at the COP28 meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Flood Control: Windsor Park Stadium

Jim Shannon: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of flood defences at Windsor Park; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of allocating funding to strengthen those defences.

Robbie Moore: The Environment Agency manages a defence known as Spitalfield Reservoir on the Bourne Ditch within Windsor Great Park, on Crown Estate land. Funding is allocated for the ongoing maintenance of the reservoir. The Environment Agency maintains the embankments and penstocks within the concrete structure to manage impoundment of water and the downstream flow. Under Section 12 of the Reservoir Act 1975, an annual inspection is required to be undertaken by a qualified Supervising Engineer. The last inspection of the Spitalfield Reservoir, in September 2023, identified a number of minor maintenance actions that will be carried out by the Environment Agency over the coming months. The Supervising Engineer did not identify issues that would reduce the standard of protection the reservoir offers to protect properties downstream. If Measures in the Interest of Safety were found during any inspection, where the resilience of the reservoir was below its current design standard of protection, funding would be sought for works required.

Sewage: Waste Disposal

Luke Pollard: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to publish the storm overflow action plans.

Robbie Moore: As part of our drive for better water quality, the Government has asked every water and sewerage company to present a clear assessment and action plan on every storm overflow they operate, prioritising those that are spilling into bathing waters and high-priority nature sites. The action plans will be published in due course, subject to assurance of the data provided.

Storms: North West

Conor McGinn: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps he has taken with relevant authorities to improve storm (a) resilience and (b) recovery efforts in (i) the North West and (ii) St Helens.

Robbie Moore: (a) The Environment Agency (EA) is investing £748 million in the current capital programme (2021-27) to reduce the impact of flooding across the North West. The EA has 850 assets in the Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire area which it operates and maintains, and staff available 24/7 to respond to incidents. The EA’s network of river telemetry informs its operation of the Flood Warning Service which helps at risk communities prepare for flooding. As part of the recovery from storms, the EA inspects its assets for damage and to confirm that they have operated as expected and meets with communities on the ground to determine the extent of flooding. The EA attends regular operational meetings with St Helens Borough Council (BC) and United Utilities to review flood risk management issues and solutions. The EA is supporting St Helens BC on updating its multi-agency emergency flood plan and in the development of two new flood risk schemes – Black Brook and Rainford Brook. St Helens BC has an allocation of £769k towards flood defence schemes in the current capital programme The EA conducts a routine maintenance programme in 13 locations in St Helens to reduce flood risk. It has completed removal of a silt island in Windle Brook, at the silt trap immediately upstream from Dilloway Street debris screen, in the previous 12 months to improve channel capacity and flow. (b) The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities activated the Flood Recovery Framework on 6 January. For the Storm Henk Flood Recovery Framework activation, eligible areas are those upper and lower tier authority areas: reporting over 50 internally flooded properties (any combination of households and businesses) at their Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) level; andwith properties flooded as a direct result of Storm Henk; andwith properties flooded between the dates of 2 January 2024 and 12 January 2024. Local Authorities and LLFAs are responsible for distributing funding to affected people. They are able to do as soon as they notify the Government their area becomes eligible so the scheme can be extended. Government funding for eligible properties will be paid to Local Authorities retrospectively, based on the certified cost of providing relief.

Department for Business and Trade

Bananas: Import Duties

Sarah Champion: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what her Department's planned timescale is for the review of banana tariffs.

Greg Hands: The UK-Andean Countries Trade Agreement is due to commence in summer 2024. The agreement does not commit the UK to any further liberalisation of the market.

Arms Trade: Israel

Dr Philippa Whitford: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policy on arms exports to Israel of the International Court of Justice's order relating to the case of the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v Israel), published on 26 January 2024.

Greg Hands: Decisions on export licensing are based on the UK's Strategic Export Licensing Criteria. The Governments export licences are kept under careful and continual review, and can amend, suspend or revoke extant licences, or refuse new licence applications, where they are inconsistent with these criteria. The Government respects the role and independence of the International Court of Justice. However, the Government have stated that we have considerable concerns about this case. Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas, provided this is proportionate and within the bounds of International Humanitarian Law, as we’ve said from the outset. The Government view is that Israel’s actions in Gaza cannot be described as a genocide, which is why South Africa’s decision to bring the case was wrong and provocative.

Exports: South Korea

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department has taken to help increase exports to South Korea since 2022.

Greg Hands: The November 2023 State Visit from the Republic of Korea’s President Yoon is demonstrative of the growing strength of our trade relationship, with £2.5 billion of business wins announced, including contracts for British companies to support RoK’s renewable sector worth over £90 million. The Visit also saw the launch of negotiations for an upgraded, modern free trade agreement to reinforce existing trade, and create new export opportunities. Round One of negotiations took place in January, with subsequent rounds scheduled. The Government continues to remove barriers to trade, and, in 2022 secured the removal of rules banning the import from the UK of certain pork products.

Exports: Japan

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department has taken to help increase exports to Japan since 2022.

Greg Hands: In September 2023, the Secretary of State held the first UK-Japan Economic, Business and Trade Dialogue. As a result, UK Export Finance signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Nippon Export and Investment Insurance, which will support UK exporters including SMEs.In October 2023, the Joint Committee of the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) noted that, in 2022, the value of UK exports to Japan benefitting from the agreement increased approximately 1.5-fold on the previous year. Further, that resolution of a market access barrier on UK exports of cooked poultry had been achieved, which industry estimates could be worth £10 million over 5 years.

Exports: Sweden

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department has taken to help increase exports to Sweden since 2022.

Greg Hands: The Government is committed to driving forward export growth and helping UK businesses export to markets across the globe including Sweden. UK exports to Sweden amounted to £12.0 billion in the 12 months to September 2023, making Sweden the UK’s 20th largest export market. In 2022, UK and Swedish Trade Ministers inaugurated the first annual UK Sweden Business Forum, which seeks to increase the volume of bilateral trade and investment and address barriers to trade. Subsequently, the UK Sweden Strategic Partnership Agreement signed by the countries’ respective Prime Ministers in October 2023 committed to the continuation of this forum.

Exports: United Arab Emirates

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department has taken to help increase exports to the United Arab Emirates since 2022.

Greg Hands: The Government is committed to driving forward export growth and helping UK businesses export to markets across the globe including the United Arab Emirates (UAE). UK exports to UAE amounted to £15.6 billion in the 12 months to September 2023, an increase of 23.3% or £2.9 billion in current prices compared to the previous 12 months, making UAE the UK’s 13th largest export market. The Government is negotiating an ambitious UK-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Free Trade Agreement to boost trade with the region by cutting tariffs and removing red tape, demonstrating a commitment to a strengthened trade relationship with the UAE.

Exports: Poland

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department has taken to help increase exports to Poland since 2022.

Greg Hands: The Government is committed to driving forward export growth and helping UK businesses export to markets across the globe including Poland. UK exports to Poland amounted to £10.5 billion in the 12 months to September 2023, an increase of 26.0% or £2.2 billion in current prices compared to the previous 12 months, making Poland the UK’s 21st largest export market.UK businesses can access DBT’s wealth of export support, via Great.gov.uk. This comprises a digital self-serve offer and a wider network of support, including trade advisers, Export Champions, the Export Academy, International Markets network and UK Export Finance.I visited Poland last month to promote UK exports and two-way investment flows.

Exports: Australia

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department has taken to help increase exports to Australia since 2022.

Greg Hands: The Government is committed to driving forward export growth and helping UK businesses export to markets across the globe including Australia. The Government is proud of the world-class deal it negotiated with Australia, the UK’s first from-scratch FTA, and is working to ensure businesses feel confident in using the deal. UK exports to Australia amounted to £14.3 billion in the 12 months to September 2023, an increase of 18.5% or £2.2 billion in current prices compared to the previous 12 months, making Australia the UK’s 16th largest export market. UK businesses can access DBT’s export support services via Great.gov.uk.

Exports: Switzerland

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department has taken to help increase exports to Switzerland since 2022.

Greg Hands: The Government is committed to driving forward export growth and helping UK businesses export to markets across the globe, including Switzerland. In January 2023 the Government extended the Services Mobility Agreement, allowing service suppliers to travel to Switzerland more easily. In December 2023, HM Treasury signed the Berne Financial Services Agreement, providing market access to service suppliers into the Swiss market.The Government are currently negotiating an enhanced FTA, which aims to provide deeper market access for services suppliers and remove tariff barriers.Switzerland is the UK’s 7th largest export market. UK businesses can access DBT’s export service support via Great.gov.uk.

Exports: Singapore

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department has taken to help increase exports to Singapore since 2022.

Greg Hands: The UK-Singapore Strategic Partnership launched last September and encompasses our milestone UK-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement, the first-of-its-kind for the UK. Businesses are already benefitting from its world-class provisions on duty-free movement of data, data non-localisation and source code protection that make it easier for UK companies to trade digitally with Singapore. In March 2023, the UK-Singapore Green Economy Framework was agreed, a hybrid climate-trade agreement and another first-of-its-kind for the UK, which will support decarbonisation in both economies, enabling green growth and job creation. The UK’s upcoming accession to CPTPP, ratified by Singapore in January, will only further strengthen our strong trading relationship.

Exports: Canada

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department has taken to help increase exports to Canada since 2022.

Ms Nusrat Ghani: The Government are committed to driving forward export growth and helping UK businesses export to markets across the globe including Canada. UK exports to Canada amounted to £16.4 billion in the 12 months to September 2023, an increase of 14.1% or £2.0 billion in current prices compared to the previous 12 months.

Exports: Turkey

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department has taken to help increase exports to Turkey since 2022.

Greg Hands: The Government is committed to driving forward export growth and helping UK businesses export to global markets. UK exports to Turkey were £10.0 billion in the 12 months to September 2023, an increase of 18.3% or £1.6 billion in current prices compared to the previous 12 months, making Turkey the UK’s 22nd largest export market. In January, a review of the Technical Barriers to Trade chapter of our Free Trade Agreement with Turkey was concluded, which will facilitate goods trade by reducing or eliminating regulatory barriers. UK businesses can access DBT’s export support services via Great.gov.uk.

Department for Transport

Fishing Vessels: Safety

Kenny MacAskill: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 2 February 2024 to Question 12084 on Fishing Vessels: Safety, what the total legal costs incurred by his Department were for (a) investigations of suspected non-use of personal floatation devices and (b) any other purpose by legal firm DWF in each of the last five years.

Guy Opperman: The Department for Transport has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Bus Services: Shropshire

Helen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the impact of the national bus fare cap on the cost of bus fares in Shropshire.

Guy Opperman: The Department for Transport does not hold fares data specific to Shropshire. The Department's statistics show that following the introduction of the cap, bus fares in England outside London dropped by 6.2% between September 2022 and September 2023, whereas in Scotland, Wales and London, where buses are devolved, fares increased by 9.8%, 6.2% and 6.0%, respectively. In rural and non-metropolitan areas in England outside London, our statistics show the overall price of bus fares between September 2022 and September 2023 dropped by almost 11%.

Bus Services: Fares

Helen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has made an assessment of the reasons why some bus operators have not volunteered to take part in the national bus fare cap scheme.

Guy Opperman: Participation in the £2 fare cap by eligible bus operators is voluntary and is ultimately a commercial decision for them to make. However, we have made it clear we would like operators to sign up.

Bus Services: Shropshire

Helen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions his Department has had with bus operators who are not included in the national bus fare cap scheme in Shropshire.

Guy Opperman: The Department for Transport has worked to encourage as many eligible bus operators to join the £2 fare cap as possible. I recently wrote to all bus operators that we believe have eligible services, but are not currently participating in the fare cap, asking them to consider joining the scheme.

Railways: WiFi

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether (a) data caps and (b) bandwidth throttling are being applied by each of the train operating companies under the control of DfT OLR Holdings Limited.

Huw Merriman: This is a commercial matter for the operator.

Active Travel

Christine Jardine: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has had discussions with the (a) Secretary of State for Levelling Up and Communities and (b) devolved Administrations on the potential impact of (i) tram and (ii) light rail projects on active travel infrastructure.

Guy Opperman: The Department for Transport has regular discussions with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, as well as with the devolved administrations. However, no specific discussions have taken place with these bodies regarding the impact of light rail projects on active travel infrastructure.Local transport authorities are responsible for bringing forward mass transit projects, including developing proposals regarding technology choice, route selection and alignment. The Department encourages authorities to consider how mass transit schemes can provide effective integration with other modes, including active travel.

Railways: WiFi

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the quality of wifi provision is (a) subject to a minimum service requirement and (b) a key performance indicator for train operating companies (i) contracted to the private sector and (ii) under the control of DfT OLR Holdings.

Huw Merriman: All operators are obligated under their franchise agreements to provide the provision of free wifi on board to passengers. The provision is a commercial matter for the operator itself.

Bus Services: Fares

Helen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he is taking steps to help make bus travel cheaper on routes where the national bus fare cap scheme is not in operation.

Guy Opperman: In addition to the nearly £600 million the Government is providing to cap single bus fares at £2 on over 5,000 routes in England outside London until the end of 2024, the Government is also providing over £2 billion to local transport authorities to deliver their Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs). Every local transport authority in England outside London has been allocated BSIP funding, which can be used to support any bus service improvements that the local authority - working with bus operators - know their community needs. This could include initiatives to introduce lower bus fares.

Railways: WiFi

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to p.26 of the UK Wireless Infrastructure Strategy published by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology in April 2023, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure the consistency of wireless connectivity on the rail network.

Huw Merriman: The Department is working closely with Network Rail Telecoms on initiatives such as Project Reach to improve connectivity on the rail network and consults with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on developments

Railways: WiFi

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has made a comparative assessment of the performance of (a) passenger Wi-Fi and (b) non-passenger data transmission by each of the train operating companies that are (i) contracted by him to the private sector and (ii) under the control of DfT OLR Holdings Limited with international counterparts.

Huw Merriman: We do not hold information on average data transmission speeds and we do not have a comparative assessment.

Hammersmith Bridge: Repairs and Maintenance

Sarah Olney: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will publish the minutes of each of the fortnightly meetings held by his Department, TfL and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham on the business case for the strengthening works on Hammersmith Bridge in the last six months.

Huw Merriman: These meetings are primarily for the Department’s officials to discuss any updates regarding the ongoing Hammersmith Bridge restoration project with their counterparts at Transport for London and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and are not minuted.

Railways: Access

Afzal Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 1 February 2024 to Question 11862, for what reason successful nominations for funding under the Access for All programme have not yet been announced.

Huw Merriman: Further to the answer of 1st February 2024, I reaffirm the Government’s commitment of £350m of additional funding to improve the accessibility of stations across Great Britain. We are assessing over 300 nominations for Access for All funding which is a detailed and rigorous process.

Railways: Optical Fibres

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress Network Rail has made on finalising the contract for Project Reach.

Huw Merriman: Network Rail are in exclusive discussions with NEOS Networks to finalise the proposal on Project Reach. As these discussions are commercially sensitive, the Department is unable to disclose any details at this stage.

High Speed 1 Line: Switzerland

Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will publish the (a) agendas and (b) minutes of discussion (i) he and (ii) officials in his Department have had with his Swiss counterpart on a proposed train link between London St. Pancras and Basel.

Huw Merriman: As these meetings with the government of Switzerland were held on a confidential basis it would not be appropriate to publish this information. However, the Government has been developing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Swiss Government which I would be happy to share a copy of with the member for Romford once this has been formally signed.

Lancaster-Morecambe Railway Line: Electrification

Cat Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the economic impact of electrifying the railway line between Lancaster and Morecambe.

Huw Merriman: Electrification, alongside alternative technologies such as hydrogen, battery and bi-modes, will play an important role in meeting our Net Zero targets. We are working with the Great British Rail Transition Team to bring forward options to decarbonise the whole network including Lancaster to Morecambe for government to carefully consider in terms of overall deliverability and affordability

Motor Vehicles: Insurance

Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has had recent discussions with car manufacturers on trends in car insurance prices in the last 12 months.

Guy Opperman: Department for Transport officials regularly engage with representatives of the motor insurance industry on a variety of issues including the cost of insurance.

Railways: WiFi

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what information his Department holds on the average Wi-Fi (a) download and (b) upload speed per passenger provided by each of the train operating companies.

Huw Merriman: The Department last commissioned Transport Focus to conduct this research in July 2020. The data is available online in a report titled ‘Keeping Connected: passengers’ experience of internet connectivity on Great Britain’s railways’

Brighton Main Line: Aerials

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many mobile masts have been installed on the London-Brighton railway by Cellnex since 2021; and how many mobile network operators were offering services from Cellnex masts as of 1 February 2024.

Huw Merriman: The Department does not hold this information as this is a commercial contract being delivered by Cellnex.

Question

Mrs Sheryll Murray: Secretary of State for Transport, whether he is taking steps to support motorists with road tolls.

Guy Opperman: Established government policy is that river and estuarial crossings will normally be funded by tolls, recognising the extra cost of their construction and maintenance, and also the substantial benefits for their users. Other than such crossings and the M6 Toll motorway, the majority of the road network is free of tolls, and the Government has no plans to change this.

Railways

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Rail Networks Enhancement Pipeline most recently published on 16 October 2019, whether it remains his policy that the Rail Networks Enhancement Pipeline will be published on an annual basis.

Huw Merriman: Whilst the Government remains committed to investing in rail, as demonstrated by the Prime Minister’s Network North announcement which detailed an unprecedented number of commitments, significant changes to travel patterns after the pandemic and the challenging fiscal environment rightly require reconsideration of the rail infrastructure portfolio.We understand the interests of stakeholders - industry and local representatives - in the visibility of our forward programme of work. Moving forward we intend to review, with involvement from the supply chain, how best to provide updates on the rail enhancements portfolio.

High Speed 2 Line: Costs

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the cost to the public purse was of (a) acquiring and (b) managing (i) land and (ii) property associated with Phase 2 of HS2 as of 31 January 2024; and whether he has made an estimate of potential future costs for the 2023-24 financial year.

Huw Merriman: As of 31 December 2023, a total cost of £580m was spent on acquiring both land and property on Phase 2 broken down as follows:Phase 2a £215mPhase 2b Western Leg £203mPhase 2b Eastern leg £162m(including HS2 East)Around £17m is forecast to be spent on Phase 2 land and property in the last three months of the 23/24 financial year, for the settlement of transactions agreed before the cancellation of Phase 2 announced on 4 October. The management of the land and property portfolio in Phase 2 incurred a total of £1.69m during the 23/24 financial year, which covers full portfolio management including sourcing tenants, rent collection, commercial negotiation, compliance, accounting, and surveying.Any land and property asset that is no longer required will be sold or repurposed for Northen Powerhouse Rail, and a programme is being developed to do this. We expect much of the capital cost of acquiring these properties will be recovered when they are resold.

Large Goods Vehicles: Carbon Emissions

Bill Esterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he plans to publish the zero emission HGV and coach infrastructure strategy.

Anthony Browne: The Department is working with industry stakeholders to develop a zero emission HGV and coach infrastructure strategy for publication this year.

A12

Priti Patel: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he expects work on the A12 widening scheme to begin and to be completed.

Guy Opperman: National Highways set out its expected delivery schedule on the A12 Chelmsford to A120 widening scheme (junctions 19 to 25) in its Delivery Plan Update, with start of works expected in 2023/24 and open for traffic in Road Period 3 (2025-2030). National Highways reports on delivery, regularly updating progress on its website and will provide more details in due course. The Secretary of State granted development consent for the A12 to A120 Widening Scheme on the 12 January 2024. The Department is unable to comment on the details of the decision during the 6-week High Court challenge period, which began the day after the consent was published.

Electric Vehicles: Charging Points

Lloyd Russell-Moyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress his Department has made on meeting its target of installing 300,000 electric vehicle charging points by 2030.

Anthony Browne: The number of public charging devices is rapidly increasing. 16,622 chargepoints were installed in 2023, bringing the total number of public chargepoints to 53,677 on 1 January 2024 – an increase of 45% since 1 January 2023. This puts us on a growth rate consistent with over 300,000 public charging devices in the UK by 2030.

Aviation: Fuels

Henry Smith: When he plans to respond to the sustainable available fuel mandate consultation.

Anthony Browne: A mandate to supply sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) will be introduced in 2025, leading to at least 10% SAF in UK jet fuel by 2030. Following the close of the second SAF mandate consultation in June 2023, the department has made significant progress in updating the evidence base and finalising the design of the Mandate. I can confirm that the government response will be published in spring 2024.

Active Travel: Finance

Fabian Hamilton: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he plans to announce new and increased dedicated funding for active travel.

Guy Opperman: Since May 2023, the Department has announced £200 million of capital funding through the Active Travel Fund and almost £60 million of revenue funding to support active travel to school through Bikeability, Walk to School, Big Bike Revival and Modeshift Stars. Active Travel England is preparing to announce the next rounds of Active Travel Fund and Capability Fund allocations shortly.

Church Commissioners

Churches: Security

Jim Shannon: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what funds the Commissioners allocate to churches for (a) cameras, (b) alarms and (c) other security equipment.

Andrew Selous: All churches are eligible to apply for the Home Office hate crime scheme if they need support with new or upgrading equipment or facilities.  The Benefact Trust has funded alarms for churches. More details are available on the Church of England website about how to support parishes with resources and advice: https://www.churchofengland.org/resources/churchcare/advice-and-guidance-church-buildings/security-and-crime-prevention

Church of England: Charity Commission

Mr Ben Bradshaw: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, whether the Church has published guidance on the procedure for investigating serious incidents it has reported to the Charity Commission.

Andrew Selous: The National Church Institutions follow the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on registering a serious incident report.Reporting guidance for any charity, trustee, employee, and volunteer who has concerns about the operation of any charity can be found on the Gov.uk website here: https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-charity

Church of England: Charity Commission

Mr Ben Bradshaw: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what data the commissioners hold on the number of serious incident reports that have been reported to the Charity Commission by the Church of England in the last 12 months.

Andrew Selous: Each of the National Church Institutions, dioceses, and parochial church councils is a legally separate and independent charitable body, and each body is responsible for making its own serious incident reports to the Charity Commission. There is no central list.The Church Commissioners do not hold information about the number of serious incident reports made to the Charity Commission other than their own. The Church Commissioners made two serious incident reports in the last 12 months; neither report related to safeguarding.

Independent Safeguarding Board

Mr Ben Bradshaw: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, how many and what proportion of the case reviews that the Independent Safeguarding Board agreed to undertake have been commissioned by the interim commissioner of independent reviews.

Mr Ben Bradshaw: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, whether the commissioners have had recent discussions with (a) the Archbishops' Council and (b) other stakeholders on the commissioning of case reviews that the Independent Safeguarding Board agreed to undertake; what the timescale is for case reviews commissioned by the interim commissioner of independent reviews; and what steps are being taken to ensure the adequacy of such reviews.

Mr Ben Bradshaw: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, whether the commissioners have had discussions with the Archbishops' Council on the potential impact of recommendations from case reviews commissioned by the interim commissioner of independent reviews on earlier cases.

Andrew Selous: The Archbishops' Council commissioned the Interim Commissioner of Independent Reviews to undertake discussions with survivors who had been promised reviews by the former Independent Safeguarding Board, about the terms of reference for reviewing their cases. At the request of survivors, the number in discussion with the Interim Commissioner will be kept confidential, given that the number of survivors promised a review by the ISB is relatively small and there is a possibility of identifying individuals.At present no reviews have been commissioned, though some are in the final stages of consideration. The timetable will depend on the terms of reference and agreements with individual survivors, and the Interim Commissioner is taking care to ensure that each review is adequate to the particular circumstances of the case.The recent review into the events leading to the termination of contracts of the members of the Independent Safeguarding Board – the Wilkinson Report – identified lessons learned on how recommendations from all case reviews are taken forward, which will be discussed at the forthcoming February meeting of the General Synod of the Church of England.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Ethiopia: Famine

Mary Kelly Foy: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether his Department is providing emergency humanitarian assistance to help avert famine in Ethiopia.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: The UK is committed to providing support to the most vulnerable and those in desperate need. We have already increased our humanitarian support this financial year to £74 million. This includes a £23 million contribution to the Productive Safety Net Programme that will reach a further 350,000 people living in extreme poverty across Ethiopia. Additionally, the UK recently announced £100 million of funding that includes providing lifesaving nutritional support.

Elizabeth Tsurkov

Alex Cunningham: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of the case of Elizabeth Tsurkov who was kidnapped in Iraq in March 2023.

David Rutley: The UK is concerned over the kidnapping of Israeli-Russian dual national Elizabeth Tsurkov. The Government of Iraq opened an investigation into her kidnapping last year, and we await the findings. Those suspected of criminal responsibility should be brought to justice in fair trials.

Alaa Abdel Fattah

Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what recent progress he has made on securing the release of imprisoned pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

David Rutley: Ministers and officials continue to raise Mr Alaa Abd El-Fattah's case at the highest levels with the Egyptian government and have been consistently clear in our calls for his release, while continuing to press the need for urgent consular access. The Foreign Secretary and Minister of State for the Middle East, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon raised his case with President Sisi and Egyptian Foreign Minister Shoukry on 21 December 2023. The Prime Minister also recently raised Mr El-Fattah's case with President Sisi on 1 December 2023.

Western Sahara: Politics and Government

Daniel Kawczynski: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of recognising Western Sahara as part of the Kingdom of Morocco.

David Rutley: The UK continues to support UN-led efforts to reach a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution, based on compromise, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara. We strongly support the work of Staffan de Mistura, Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General and will continue to encourage constructive engagement with the political process and monitor progress.

International Law

Neale Hanvey: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether his Department has a tracker database of alleged violations of international law.

Leo Docherty: We are monitoring closely the situation in Israel and the Occupied-Palestinian Territories. We regularly review advice about Israel's commitment and capability to comply with International Humanitarian Law.

UNRWA: Finance

Dr Philippa Whitford: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the pause of future funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on the provision of emergency shelter for internally displaced civilians in Gaza.

Dr Philippa Whitford: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the pause of future funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on the emergency treatment and rehabilitation of wounded civilians in Gaza.

Dr Philippa Whitford: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of suspending funding for UNRWA on access to (a) food, (b) clean drinking water and (c) healthcare and medical supplies for children in Gaza.

Leo Docherty: The UK is appalled by allegations that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel, a heinous act of terrorism that the UK Government has repeatedly condemned. The UK's pause in any future funding of UNRWA will remain in place until we review the allegations, and we are looking to our partners in the UN to carry out a robust and comprehensive investigation. Further questions on the investigation are a matter for the UN.However, we remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it, and our decision to pause future funding to UNRWA has no impact on the UK's contribution to the humanitarian response. Our commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stands, and we are getting on with aid delivery through funding multiple implementing partners including other UN agencies and international and UK NGOs. This support is helping people in Gaza get food, water, shelter and medicines. The UK is providing £60 million in humanitarian assistance to support partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Egyptian Red Crescent Society (ERCS) to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza.We are currently supporting NGOs and UN partners to deliver medical aid and care in the Gaza Strip. This includes support for primary healthcare, trauma and emergency care services, disease surveillance and outbreak response, and deployment of Emergency Medical Teams. We are also exploring further options to help meet the medical needs of Palestinians.

Genocide

Neale Hanvey: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what steps the Government takes to meet its legal obligation to prevent genocide.

Leo Docherty: As a party to the Genocide Convention, the UK is fully committed to the prevention and punishment of genocide as appropriate under the Convention.

Gaza: Health Professions

Sir Stephen Timms: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he plans to support the nomination of health care workers in Gaza for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.

Leo Docherty: We recognise the vital work being carried out by healthcare workers in the current conflict. We are supporting NGOs and UN partners to deliver medical aid and care in the Gaza Strip, to meet the immediate needs of the population there. This includes support for primary healthcare, trauma and emergency care services, disease surveillance and outbreak response, and deployment of Emergency Medical Teams.

UNRWA: Finance

Alan Brown: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he has made an assessment of the consistency of (a) the decision to pause future funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and (b) paragraph 80 of the International Court of Justice's Order relating to the case of the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v Israel), published on 26 January 2024.

Leo Docherty: We are appalled by allegations that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel, a heinous act of terrorism that the UK Government has repeatedly condemned. The UK is pausing any future funding of UNRWA whilst we review these concerning allegations.However, we remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it, and our decision to pause future funding to UNRWA has no impact on the UK's contribution to the humanitarian response. Our commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stands, and we are getting on with aid delivery through funding multiple implementing partners including other UN agencies and international and UK NGOs. This support is helping people in Gaza get food, water, shelter and medicines.We are also clear that an immediate pause is necessary to get aid in and hostages out, and then progress towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire, without a return to destruction, fighting and loss of life.

Palestinians: Refugees

Afzal Khan: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether his Department has made an assessment of potential alternatives for the provision of support to Palestinian refugees, in the context of the pause in funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), announced on 27 January 2024.

Leo Docherty: We remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it, and we are getting on with aid delivery through funding multiple implementing partners including other UN agencies and international and UK NGOs. This support is helping people in Gaza get food, water, shelter and medicines.Our commitment to trebling aid to Gaza also still stands; the UK is providing £60 million in humanitarian assistance to support partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Egyptian Red Crescent Society (ERCS) to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza. We will continue to support and have supported the United Nations World Food Programme to deliver a new humanitarian land corridor from Jordan into Gaza. We have and will continue to support the Egyptian Red Crescent Society (ERCS) which has a long standing and trusted role as auxiliary to the Egyptian authorities in the humanitarian field.

UNRWA: Finance

Afzal Khan: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what (a) information and (b) sources informed the decision not to renew funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the next financial year; and what assessment he has made of the potential implications of that decision on future UK funding for humanitarian relief efforts for Palestinians.

Leo Docherty: The UK is appalled by allegations that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel, a heinous act of terrorism that the UK Government has repeatedly condemned. We are pausing an future funding of UNRWA while we review these concerning allegations. The pause will remain in place until we are able to review the allegations. Any future funding decisions will be taken after this time.We remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it. This support is helping people in Gaza get food, water, shelter and medicines. The UK is providing £60 million in humanitarian assistance to support partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Egyptian Red Crescent Society (ERCS) to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza.

Gaza: British Nationals Abroad

Drew Hendry: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if he will hold discussions with his Israeli counterpart on taking steps to help ensure the safety of the family members of British citizens in the event that combat operations take place in Rafah.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: We continue to urge Israel take greater care to limit its operations to military targets and avoid harming civilians and destroying homes. The Foreign Secretary reiterated this during his visit to Israel on 24 January.We have helped to facilitate over 300 British Nationals to leave Gaza so far. We are working with the Israelis and Egyptian authorities to ensure any remaining British nationals still in Gaza that want to leave are cleared to cross as soon as possible and encourage timely processing of UK consular cases.

Gaza: British Nationals Abroad

Drew Hendry: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what support his Department provides to UK citizens with family members in Gaza; and what assessment he has made of the adequacy of that support.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: Government support to individuals affected by a crisis abroad is set out on gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-deal-with-a-crisis-overseas. This includes the support provided in certain circumstances to immediate family members of British nationals.We are engaging with the Israeli and Egyptian authorities on a regular basis to discuss the border crossing and encourage timely processing of UK consular cases. We have helped to facilitate over 300 British nationals to leave Gaza so far. A small number remain.

UNRWA: Finance

Alan Brown: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that pauses in the funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) do not exacerbate the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Alan Brown: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of a reduction in future funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on the effectiveness of international NGOs operating in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Alan Brown: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what assessment he has made of the impact of a pause in future funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Leo Docherty: The UK is appalled by allegations that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel, a heinous act of terrorism that the UK Government has repeatedly condemned. The UK is pausing any future funding of UNRWA whilst we review these concerning allegations.We remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it. Our commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stands, and we are helping people in Gaza get food, water, shelter and medicines. The UK is providing £60 million in humanitarian assistance to support partners including the British Red Cross, UNICEF, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Egyptian Red Crescent Society (ERCS) to respond to critical food, fuel, water, health, shelter and security needs in Gaza.

UNRWA: Finance

Alan Brown: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what assessment he has made of the the potential impact of pauses of future funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on stability in the West Bank.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: The UK is appalled by allegations that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel, a heinous act of terrorism that the UK Government has repeatedly condemned. The UK is pausing any future funding of UNRWA whilst we review these concerning allegations.However, we remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the those who desperately need it. Our commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stands.Regarding the situation in the West Bank, as we have stated we support a two-state solution that guarantees security and stability for both the Israeli and Palestinian people, and the Palestinian Authority has an important long-term role to play. We must work with our allies to provide serious, practical and enduring support needed to bolster the Palestinian Authority. We already provide technical and practical support and are ready to do more. The Palestinian Authority must also take much needed steps to reform, including setting out a pathway to demonstrate progress. Just as the Palestinian Authority must act, so must Israel. This means releasing frozen funds, halting settlement expansion and holding to account those responsible for extremist settler violence.

Corruption

Dame Margaret Hodge: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, how much his Department (a) budgeted and (b) spent on the UK Action Against Corruption programme in each financial year since the start of that programme.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: The budget and spend on the UK Action to Support Developing Countries Fighting Corruption Programme are provided in the below table. This includes budget and spend in previous iterations of the Programme.Financial YearNational Crime AgencyCrown Prosecution AgencyCity of London Police*Metropolitan Police Service*UK Central Authority2009/10 Budget-----2009/10 Spend£128,933.00-£316,271.68£243,000.00-2010/11 Budget-----2010/11 Spend£28,059.00£4,855.00£889,816.90£701,969.30-2011/12 Budget-----2011/12 Spend-£132,713.70£900,205.38£759,999.83-2012/13 Budget-----2012/13 Spend£211,500.00£140,784.47£1,122,820.87£938,476.84-2013/14 Budget-----2013/14 Spend£201,984.25£169,834.41£1,318,601.56£1,168,001.00-2014/15 Budget-----2014/15 Spend£419,512.99£183,043.61£1,314,870.58£1,352,288.50-2015/16 Budget£2,824,469.00£194,887.00£655,218.00£219,462.00-2015/16 Spend£1,928,332.37£215,639.41£612,753.00£108,953.74-2016/17 Budget£3,912,796.00£231,748.00£404,426.00--2016/17 Spend£2,748,325.44£216,546.87£455,877.74--2017/18 Budget£4,361,241.00£244,761.00£240,000.00--2017/18 Spend£3,875,640.69£261,205.19£191,936.82--2018/19 Budget£4,443,003.00£272,931.00£180,700.00--2018/19 Spend£4,869,794.62£252,941.12£180,471.24--2019/20 Budget£4,610,853.00£272,931.00£170,000.00--2019/20 Spend£4,230,454.11£300,146.87£233,218.28--2020/21 Budget£5,656,027.00£317,000.00£117,943.00 (Budget for FY 2020/21 and 2021/22)-£254,788.002020/21 Spend£5,538,861.87£313,544.41£36,444.55-£180,032.772021/22 Budget£5,023,000.00£213,000.00£117,943.00 (Budget for FY 2020/21 and 2021/22)-£65,608.002021/22 Spend£4,699,253.60£213,000.00£18,643.20-£54,776.102022/23 Budget£4,764,774.00£213,000.00---2022/23 Spend£5,006,953.80£213,000.00---*The Metropolitan Police Service Proceeds of Corruption Team (POCU) and the work of the City of London Police Overseas Anti-Corruption Unit (OACU) were merged with the National Crime Agency in 2015. OACU funding continued to complete legacy cases until 2021/22. The UK Central Authority funding began in 2020 but then was cut as a result of Covid budget priorities.

Israel: Palestinians

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he made representations in support of a two-state solution during his last meeting with the Prime Minister of Israel.

Leo Docherty: We want to see an end to the fighting in Gaza as soon as possible and are calling for an immediate pause to get aid in and hostages out, then progress towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire, without a return to destruction, fighting and loss of life.These are the vital steps:o the release of all Israeli hostages;o the formation of a new Palestinian Government for the West Bank and Gaza, accompanied by an international support package;o removing Hamas's capacity to launch attacks against Israel;o Hamas no longer in charge of Gaza; and,o a political horizon which provides a credible and irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution.The Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have reiterated these messages in their contacts with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other senior Israeli political leaders, including during the Foreign Secretary's visit to Israel on 24 January. We are clear we support a two-state solution that guarantees security and stability for both the Israeli and Palestinian people, and we need to generate momentum now towards a permanent peace. That is why we are pressing for a Contact Group, bringing together the key players, to be set up at once.

UNRWA: Finance

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what correspondence he has received from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees following the temporary pause in funding, announced on 27January 2024.

Leo Docherty: We are appalled by allegations that United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel and are pausing any future funding of UNRWA whilst we review these concerning allegations.As I [Minister Mitchell] said in the House on 29 January, I have spoken with the Commissioner-General of UNWRA, Phillippe Lazzarini about steps being taken by the organisation to review these very serious allegations.

Gaza: Genocide Convention

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what recent assessment he has made of the implications for his Department's policies of the International Court of Justice’s decision on the request for provisional measures in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).

Leo Docherty: We respect the role and independence of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). However, we have stated that we have considerable concerns about this case, which is not helpful in the goal of achieving a sustainable ceasefire. Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas in line with International Humanitarian Law, as we have said from the outset. Our view is that Israel's actions in Gaza cannot be described as a genocide, which is why we thought South Africa's decision to bring the case was wrong and provocative.The Court's call for the immediate release of hostages and the need to get more aid into Gaza is a position we have long advocated.We are clear that an immediate pause is necessary to get aid in and hostages out, and then we want to build towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire, without a return to the fighting.

Gaza: British Nationals Abroad

Drew Hendry: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he has made an estimate of how many UK citizens have family members in Rafah.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: We are working with the Israeli and Egyptian authorities to discuss the border crossing and encourage timely processing of UK consular cases. We are not in a position to provide a running commentary on the number of wider UK family members in Rafah.

UNRWA: Finance

Kenny MacAskill: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what the evidential basis was for his decision to suspend funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Leo Docherty: We are appalled by allegations that United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel. The UK is pausing any future funding of UNRWA whilst we review these concerning allegations. The United States, Germany, Australia, Canada, Finland, Switzerland and the Netherlands have all temporarily paused funding.We remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it. Our commitment to trebling aid to Gaza still stands. The UK is providing £60 million in humanitarian assistance to support partners including OCHA, UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP) and Egyptian Red Crescent Society (ERCS).

British Indian Ocean Territory: Boats

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what information his Department holds on the number and proportion of anchor permits issued to vessels in the British Indian Ocean Territory in each of the last five years.

David Rutley: The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is constitutionally distinct and separate from the UK and is administered by the BIOT Administration. The FCDO does not hold a record of the number and proportion of anchor permits issued to vessels in the Territory.

British Indian Ocean Territory: Environment Protection

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, how many fishing logs have been inspected by Fisheries Protection Officers in the British Indian Ocean Territory in each of the last five years.

David Rutley: The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is constitutionally distinct and separate from the UK and is administered by the BIOT Administration. The FCDO does not hold a record of how many fishing logs have been inspected by Fisheries Protection Officers in BIOT in each of the last five years.

British Indian Ocean Territory: Boats

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what information his Department holds on the number and proportion of applications to anchor in the British Indian Ocean Territory that were rejected in each of the last five years.

David Rutley: The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is constitutionally distinct and separate from the UK and is administered by the BIOT Administration. The FCDO does not hold a record of the number and proportion of rejected applications to anchor in the Territory.

British Indian Ocean Territory: Environment Protection

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, how many Fisheries Protection Officers are commissioned to patrol the British Indian Ocean Territory.

David Rutley: The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is constitutionally distinct and separate from the UK and is administered by the BIOT Administration. The FCDO does not hold a record of the number of Fisheries Protections Officers commissioned to patrol BIOT.

British Indian Ocean Territory: Boats

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if he will publish the registered nationalities of vessels given permission to anchor in the British Indian Ocean Territory in each of the last five years.

David Rutley: The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is constitutionally distinct and separate from the UK and is administered by the BIOT Administration. The FCDO does not hold a record of the nationalities of vessels given permission to anchor in the Territory.

Gaza: Israel

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to the International Court of Justice’s decision on the request for provisional measures in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), what diplomatic steps he plans to take to encourage political dialogue on the crisis in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: We want to see an end to the fighting in Gaza as soon as possible. We are calling for an immediate pause to get aid in and hostages out, then progress towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire, without a return to destruction, fighting and loss of life. These are the vital steps:· the release of all Israeli hostages· the formation of a new Palestinian Government for the West Bank and Gaza, accompanied by an international support package· a political horizon which provides a credible and irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution· removing Hamas's capacity to launch attacks against Israel· Hamas no longer in charge of Gaza.The Foreign Secretary has reiterated these messages in his contacts with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other senior Israeli political leaders, including during the Foreign Secretary's visit to Israel on 24 January. We need to generate momentum now towards a permanent peace. That is why we are pressing for a Contact Group, bringing together the key players, to be set up at once.

Gaza: Israel

Richard Burgon: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to Q639 of the oral evidence given by the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs to the Foreign Affairs Committee on 9 January 2024, HC 325, and to paragraph 50 of the summary grounds of the Secretary of State in the case of The King (on the application of Al-Haq) v. Secretary of State for Business and Trade, AC-2023-LON-003634, for what reason the Secretary of State said to the Committee that his role was not to make a legal adjudication on whether Israel had breached international humanitarian law.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: We regularly review advice about Israel's capability and commitment to International Humanitarian Law and act in accordance with that advice, including in relation to arms exports. The Foreign Secretary's role is to advise the Secretary of State at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) on certain Criteria in the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, including whether there is a clear risk that controlled goods exported under a licence might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of IHL, and it is for the Secretary of State at DBT to act in light of that advice.

Israel: Arms Trade

Richard Burgon: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to paragraph 40 of the summary grounds of the Secretary of State in the case of The King (on the application of Al-Haq) v. Secretary of State for Business and Trade, AC-2023-LON-003634, if he will publish the out-of-cycle international humanitarian law assessment produced by his Department's Middle East and North Africa directorate on 8 December 2023.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: We regularly review advice about Israel's capability and commitment to International Humanitarian Law and act in accordance with that advice. It would not be appropriate to comment on documents related to ongoing legal proceedings. We continue to call for International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to be respected in the conflict and for civilians to be protected.

Hamas: Children

Nicola Richards: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what information his Department holds on the alleged use of child soldiers by Hamas.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: We condemn the recruiting and use of children in armed conflict and want to see an end to this abhorrent practice.The UK is an active member of the UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), which leads the international response to violations committed against children in conflict. The Working Group issues calls and concrete requests to those governments and armed groups listed in the Secretary-General's annual report, including in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.We continue to call for International Humanitarian Law to be respected and civilians to be protected.

Egypt: Palestinians

Drew Hendry: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if he will hold discussions with his Egyptian counterpart on opening the Rafah border crossing into Egypt to Palestinian refugees.

Leo Docherty: We continue to discuss with our Egyptian counterparts a wide range of issues relating to the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Our priority is addressing the crisis in Gaza itself - we recognise that there is a desperate need for increased humanitarian support and so our focus must be on practical solutions that save lives.As we have said, Israel must take steps, working with other partners including the UN and Egypt, to significantly increase the flow of aid into Gaza including allowing prolonged humanitarian pauses, opening more routes into Gaza and restoring and sustaining water, fuel and electricity. The Foreign Secretary discussed the urgency of getting significantly more aid into Gaza to alleviate the desperate situation there with Prime Minister Netanyahu on 24 January. He reiterated the need for Israel to open more crossing points into Gaza, for Nitzana and Kerem Shalom to be open for longer, and for Israel to support the UN to distribute aid effectively across the whole of Gaza. An immediate pause is now necessary to get aid in and hostages out.

Dieudonné Niyonsenga

Ms Lyn Brown: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what recent discussions he has had with his counterpart in Rwanda on the (a) treatment in detention and (b) health of journalist Dieudonné Niyonsenga; and if he will make it his policy to call for his release.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: We are aware of the detention of Dieudonné Niyonsenga. The UK remains committed to working with Rwanda to support the development of its civil and political rights, and to address any concerns around the limited space for political opposition and critical voices. Where we have concerns about restrictions on political opposition, civil society and media freedom, we raise these with the Rwandan government, both directly and via our High Commission.

UK-Africa Investment Summit

Luke Pollard: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he has rearranged a date for the UK-Africa investment summit.

Luke Pollard: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, for what reason the UK-Africa investment summit due to be held in April 2024 has been postponed.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: The UK-African Investment Summit (UK-AIS), due to take place in April 2024, has been postponed to a later date owing to scheduling issues in the international calendar. New summit dates will be announced in due course.The UK government is committed to building on the success of the 2020 UK-Africa Investment Summit, which laid the foundations for new partnerships between the UK and African nations based on trade, investment, shared values and mutual interest. This includes by ensuring attendance from governments across the continent, as well as British and African businesses eager to harness the benefits of our trading relationship.

Tigray: Human Rights

Ms Lyn Brown: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what recent assessment he has made of the human rights situation in Tigray.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: The signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) in November 2022, reduced the scale of violations and abuses in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia, though reports of sexual and gender-based violence continued throughout last year, particularly in areas occupied by Eritrea and militias. The space for civil society and media continues to be constrained and whilst progress has been made in the process to develop a national Transitional Justice policy, implementation and genuine accountability for human rights violations and abuses remains lacking.

Zambia: Cholera

Mary Kelly Foy: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what steps his Department is taking to help provide humanitarian support following the recent outbreak of cholera in Zambia.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: The UK is providing £670,000 towards the International Federation of the Red Cross emergency appeal, which is operating to support the Government of Zambia Cholera Response Plan. We have also deployed a two-member UK Emergency Medical Team and a three person UK Public Health Rapid Support Team who are providing support to the response. These teams have joined the existing UK Health Security Agency team in Zambia, which has developed a close partnership with Zambian health authorities since 2019, helping to build technical capability and strengthening public health systems.

Pacific Ocean Islands: Climate Change

Lisa Nandy: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what recent discussions he has had with Pacific island states on climate change adaptation.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan: Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are on the frontline of climate change and Pacific Island leaders have made it clear that building climate resilience is their priority. UK support for climate adaptation sits at the heart of HMG ministerial engagement with Pacific Island counterparts. At COP28 we co-hosted the Third Climate Development Ministerial with Vanuatu. The Minister for the Indo-Pacific discussed climate change with a range of ministers at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in November 2023 and the former Foreign Secretary discussed it with the leaders and ministers he met during his visit to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in April 2023.

Migrant Workers: Higher Education

Sir Julian Lewis: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Researchers at Risk programme, organised by the British Academy in collaboration with the Council for At-Risk Academics and other UK National Academies, in rescuing and supporting researchers from Ukraine; and if he will make it his policy to help expand the programme to cover academics from other countries where they face serious risk.

Leo Docherty: More than 170 Ukrainian academics have been supported in the UK under the 'Researchers at Risk' programme, launched in March 2022. £3 million was initially allocated to the programme. A further £9.8 million, announced by the Government in June 2022, helped it to expand significantly to meet demand. The first priority of the programme was to enable Ukraine-based researchers to continue their research at UK institutions, whether they were fleeing the conflict or already in the UK and unable to return home. The Academy hopes to open the scheme more widely, when possible, subject to funding.

Department for Education

Teachers: Training

Munira Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the teacher Supply Model target for the 2024 entry into initial teacher training is, by subject; and whether that number has been recruited in a previous year.

Damian Hinds: There are multiple routes into teaching, including those returning to the profession, those that are new to the English state-funded schools sector, assessment only, and initial teacher training. Approximately 50% of teachers entering into the school workforce each year are newly qualified, with the vast majority of them having been trained via postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) in the previous academic year.Each year the department sets a target for enrolment on postgraduate certificates in education (PGCE) courses, with the majority of those students entering the teaching workforce in the following year. This is the only route for which the department sets a recruitment target, and this is calculated within the Teacher Workforce Model (TWM).The postgraduate ITT recruitment targets for those trainees starting in September of the 2024/25 academic year will be published as official statistics in the coming months. However, it will be 2025/26 before those trainees enter into the workforce as newly qualified entrants. The specific publication date will be announced in due course, with all upcoming official statistics publications being announced via the department’s statistics release calendar, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/search/research-and-statistics?content_store_document_type=upcoming_statistics&organisations%5B%5D=department-for-education&order=updated-newest.Statistics on recruitment against the 2024/25 targets will be published in late 2024 as part of the ITT census official statistics publication. Data on previous recruitment against historical targets may be found within previously published versions of the ITT census. The 2023/24 version of the census is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census/2023-24.The 2023/24 version of the postgraduate ITT recruitment targets publication, calculated by the department’s TWM, is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/postgraduate-initial-teacher-training-targets-2023-to-2024.

Schools: Asbestos

Gareth Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of how many schools who have incurred a financial cost to manage asbestos on their premises in the last 12 months.

Damian Hinds: Safe and well-maintained school buildings are a priority for the department. The department has allocated over £15 billion to improve the condition of schools since 2015, including £1.8 billion this financial year. This funding is informed by consistent data on the condition of the estate.The department expects responsible bodies, including local authorities, governing bodies and academy trusts, to have robust plans in place to manage any asbestos in school buildings effectively in line with their legal duties.The department follows advice from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which states that, as long as asbestos is in good condition, not vulnerable to damage and carefully managed, it is usually safer to manage it in situ. The department is committed to working collaboratively with HSE, as the regulator, to support schools and duty holders.The department has not made an assessment of how many schools have incurred a financial cost to manage asbestos. Asbestos is managed by responsible bodies and schools at a local level, including determining how management is funded. The department supports them by providing guidance on the safe management of asbestos and providing access to capital funding each year. Schools are either eligible for School Condition Allocation funding to prioritise improving the condition of their schools, or they are able to bid into the Condition Improvement Fund annual bidding round, to apply for funding for specific capital projects. All schools also receive funding to spend on their capital priorities or to contribute to larger projects through an annual Devolved Formula Capital allocation. Condition funding can be used to remove asbestos when required, often as part of a wider condition project.Where responsible bodies have serious issues with buildings that cannot be managed locally, the department provides additional support on a case-by-case basis.

St Leonard's Catholic School

Mary Kelly Foy: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether all (a) books, (b) coursework and (c) other items have been retrieved from inaccessible parts of St Leonard’s Catholic School since September 2023.

Damian Hinds: The department funded and co-ordinated the decant of items from inaccessible parts of St Leonard’s Catholic School during the October 2023 half-term. The list of items for retrieval was provided by the school and these were recovered during this decant. In December 2023, the school advised officials that there were further items that they required. These were recovered on 6 December.

Schools: Buildings

Mary Kelly Foy: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department issues on the minimum temperature at which a temporary classroom can be safely used.

Damian Hinds: Guidance on recommended temperatures for classrooms are included in the energy efficiency guidance for schools. This guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-efficiency-guidance-for-the-school-and-fe-college-estate/energy-efficiency-guidance-for-the-school-and-further-education-college-estate#heating. More generally, the Health and Safety Executive’s published guidance includes the recommended minimum temperature for working indoors. This guidance can be found at: https://www.hse.gov.uk/temperature/employer/index.htm.

Special Educational Needs

Holly Mumby-Croft: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent progress her Department has made on implementing the policies in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, CP 800, published on 31 March 2023.

David Johnston: Backed by over £10.5 billion in 2024/25, which is an increase in the high needs budget of 60% over five years, the department’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan will ensure children and young people across England with SEND or in AP get high-quality, early support wherever they live in the country. The department has a clear plan to ensure children and young people enjoy their childhood and achieve good outcomes. The department is delivering on this plan. The department has completed the following:In this academic year alone, the department has opened 15 new special schools and one AP free school, which creates over 1,500 new places for children and young people. The department has also approved a further 76 special free schools to create additional specialist school places for those with the greatest needs. In September 2023, the department launched a £70 million Change Programme made up of 32 local authorities to test and refine the department’s reforms. The programme is working with local authorities, integrated care boards, school representatives, parent group representatives and professionals to benefit every region in England.In November 2023, the department announced the £13 million ‘Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools’ programme to support up to 1680 primary schools to better meet the needs of neurodiverse children Since May 2022, over 5,000 online training modules have been completed and over 100,000 professionals have undertaken autism awareness training provided by the Autism Education Trust through the Universal training offer.In January 2024, the department announced a new initial teacher training and early career framework which includes new and updated content on SEND to ensure teachers have the skills and confidence to support all children.The department has registered over 5000 practitioners for early years Special Educational Needs Coordinator training to boost their understanding of SEND in the early years, early identification and collaborative working with parents, carers and other professionals.Through grant funding, the department has supported all local authorities in England to strengthen the quality of their Supported Internship offers to improve the transition into sustained, paid employment for interns. In the Spring Budget 2023, the department announced up to £3 million to pilot extending Supported Internships to young people with learning difficulties and disabilities but without an Education, Health and Care plan until March 2025 In August 2023, the department confirmed that it is introducing a leadership level new National Professional Qualification for Special Educational Needs Coordinators, to replace the existing qualification, from Autumn 2024 and ensure special educational needs coordinators receive consistent high-quality, evidence-based training The department has provided a further £21 million to train 400 more education psychologists across the academic years 2024 and 2025 The department has extended the AP Specialist Taskforce programme to March 2025 which has reached over 4000 children to date.The department has introduced a strengthened local authority inspection regime between Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission to drive better outcomes and standards in line with the department’s ambitious programme of reform, with 23 inspection reports published so far.

Alcoholic Drinks: Health Education

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to provide adequate education on the use of alcohol to people under the age of 18.

Damian Hinds: From September 2020 in England, Relationships Education became compulsory for all primary school-aged pupils, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) became compulsory for all secondary school-aged pupils, and Health Education became compulsory for all pupils in state-funded schools.In compulsory Health Education, there is a strong focus on mental wellbeing, including a recognition that mental wellbeing and physical health are linked. This includes teaching about the dangers of tobacco, alcohol and drugs.The statutory guidance for Health Education sets out content on drugs, alcohol and tobacco use. This guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education.To support implementation, the department published a teacher training module on drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, as part of a wider suite of teacher training materials. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teacher-training-drugs-alcohol-and-tobacco.The department is currently reviewing the content of the RSHE statutory guidance and expects to consult on an amended draft very shortly so that the new guidance will be available as soon as possible.

Overseas Students: Finance

Elliot Colburn: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of (a) reducing and (b) eliminating the residency requirement for British National Overseas visa holders to qualify for (i) home fee status and (ii) student finance.

Robert Halfon: To qualify for student finance in the UK, a person must have settled status or a recognised connection to the UK.   Subject to meeting the normal eligibility requirements, British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) status holders will be able to qualify for student finance once they have acquired settled status, which is usually after five years, and have three years of ordinary residence in the UK.   The government believes that it is right that the support provided by the taxpayer should be targeted at those who have a history of a lawful and substantial residence in the UK.There are no plans to review BN(O) status holders’ access to student finance.

Education: Disadvantaged

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to close the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils in (a) primary and (b) secondary state schools in the long-term.

Damian Hinds: Raising attainment for all pupils is at the heart of this government’s agenda. The disadvantage gap at key stage 2 (KS2), as measured by the disadvantage gap index, is stable compared to 2022 having slightly reduced from 3.23 in 2022 to 3.21 in 2023. The key stage 4 (KS4) disadvantage gap index has widened slightly compared to 2021/22, from 3.84 to 3.95.Across all major departmental programmes and all phases of education, help to narrow these gaps is targeted towards pupils that need it most. The department is investing in 55 Education Investment Areas where outcomes in literacy and numeracy are the poorest, including £86 million in trust capacity funding to help strong trusts expand into areas most in need of improvement.Regular school attendance is vital for children’s attainment, mental wellbeing and long term development. The department has a comprehensive strategy in place to improve attendance that includes stronger expectations of the system, an improved data tool, and the expansion of the attendance mentor and attendance hubs programmes. This is important as statistics show that pupils with higher attainment at KS2 and KS4 had lower levels of absence over the key stage compared to those with lower attainment.The schools National Funding Formula (NFF) targets funding to schools that have the greatest numbers of pupils with additional needs. In 2024/25, the department is targeting over £4.4 billion (10.2%) of the NFF according to deprivation, and over £7.8 billion (17.8%) for additional needs overall. In 2024/25, schools with the highest levels of deprivation, on average, attract the largest per pupil funding increases.As part of the department’s almost £5 billion multi-year recovery programme, the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) also addresses this gap and has delivered nearly five million tutoring courses since it began in November 2020, of which 345,606 courses were started by pupils from September to October 2023. The department listened to feedback from schools and as a result set the subsidy at 50% for 2023/24, which reduces the amount of money schools contribute towards tutoring, which may enable more tutoring to be delivered. Recovery programmes, such as the NTP and the recovery premium, are also focused on helping the most disadvantaged. The department has provided £1 billion to extend the recovery premium over the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years. This builds on £300 million delivered in 2021/22.Pupil premium also provides extra support for these children. This funding will rise to over £2.9 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, an increase of £80 million from 2023/24. The most disadvantaged three and four year olds are also eligible for early years pupil premium funding, which is being extended to the most disadvantaged two year olds from April 2023 and to under twos from September 2023. Low-income families and children experiencing other forms of disadvantage can qualify for 15 hours free early education for two year olds, a year before all children become eligible for 15 hours at ages three and four.The quality of teaching a pupil receives is the single most important, in-school factor for improving outcomes. That is why the department’s ambition, as set out in the 2022 Schools White Paper, is to build a system of world-class teacher training and professional development that delivers high-quality professional development at every stage of a teacher’s career. 52,939 early career teachers have now benefitted from provider-led training as part of Early Career Framework reforms which are designed to support teachers in their crucial first years in the profession. 65,416 professionals have benefitted from a fully funded National Professional Qualification (NPQ) based on the best available evidence for effective practice since NPQs were reformed in 2021. This represents a substantial increase in comparison to the 33,399 professionals who undertook a funded NPQ in the four years between 2017 and 2021.Additionally, the Levelling Up Premium offers higher annual payments of up to £3,000 after tax to mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged secondary schools. For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the department will be doubling the rate of Levelling Up Premium to up to £6,000 after tax.

Schools: Admissions

Sir Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report entitled Selective Comprehensives 2024, published by the Sutton Trust on 11 January 2024, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the school admissions code.

Damian Hinds: The School Admissions Code sets the requirements for admission arrangements for all mainstream, state-funded schools. It requires admission arrangements to be fair, clear and objective, and contains various provisions to ensure that children from low-income backgrounds are not unfairly disadvantaged in the admissions system. The department keeps the provisions of the Code under review to ensure they continue to remain fit for purpose.

Universities: Admissions

Fabian Hamilton: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to require universities to admit foreign students on the same terms as UK students.

Robert Halfon: Higher education opportunities should be available to all who have the ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so. The government takes a close interest in ensuring that the higher education admissions system is fair, which includes working closely with higher education providers (HEP) and sector bodies to make sure the system works well for students.HEPs are autonomous institutions, as per the Higher Education and Research Act of 2017. This means they control their own admissions criteria and the government does not intervene in the requirements providers set for students to access a course.While HEPs are used to assessing a wide range of qualifications from domestic and international applicants to make admissions decisions, it is essential that that recruitment and admissions practices command public confidence and deliver the best outcomes for students.The department has launched an investigation into university admissions practices, and will take action to ensure fairness between domestic and international students.

Higher Education: Special Educational Needs

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is taking steps to assist students with SEND to access higher education as (a) school leavers and (b) mature students.

Robert Halfon: The department works to ensure that students of all ages with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) can access higher education. Under Section 20 of the Equality Act 2010, education and training providers and other related service providers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, including people with a learning difficulty, so they are not placed at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled students. Support is provided for disabled students by higher education providers (HEPs) through reasonable adjustment and disability services, some of which is funded through the Disabled Student Premium as well as by the government through the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA). DSA is available to help students with the additional costs they may face in higher education because of their disability. This includes long-term health conditions, mental health conditions, or specific learning difficulties, such as dyslexia. DSA can be used for the purchase of specialist equipment, for travel, or to pay for non-medical help, including the human support provided to students to enable them to access their studies. It is not means-tested and does not have to be repaid. It is available to eligible full-time and part-time students at undergraduate and postgraduate level. The department’s grant with Disability Rights UK provides a Disabled Students Helpline that responds to over 1,500 enquiries per year.

Politics: Education

Kim Leadbeater: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment on the impact of (a) the Our Generation Our Vote project and (b) other political literacy projects on levels of political engagement among young people.

Damian Hinds: As part of the national curriculum for Citizenship at key stages 3 and 4, pupils will learn about Parliament, the importance of voting and elections, and the actions citizens can take in democratic and electoral processes to influence decisions locally, nationally and beyond. The national curriculum programmes of study for Citizenship are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-citizenship-programmes-of-study. Schools are subject to statutory duties regarding political impartiality, which require them to present partisan political issues in a balanced and impartial way. The department has published guidance to support schools to meet their duties regarding political impartiality which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools.The guidance is clear that schools are responsible for reviewing any external materials that they use to ensure they are factual, balanced and age appropriate. The department therefore has no plans to assess the impact of the Our Generation Our Vote project or other political literacy projects, centrally.

Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education

Nick Fletcher: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when the new draft guidance for Relationship, Sex, and Health Education will be published.

Damian Hinds: The department aims to be in a position to publish a draft of the guidance for consultation very shortly so that the new guidance will be available as soon as possible.

Department for Education: Billing

Andrew Lewer: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to (a) reduce and (b) end the use of cash retentions.

Damian Hinds: In procuring construction works, the department takes account of relevant legislation, best practice and government guidelines. In deciding whether cash retentions are appropriate for procurements, the department balances managing public money considerations, the suitability of alternative approaches, and the need to ensure and enforce quality standards against the department’s desire to improve payment practices and cashflow through the supply-chain. The department regularly reviews its approach to payment and security in relation to construction procurements. In considering the use of cash retentions on future procurements, including in its construction frameworks, the department will continue to consult with contractors and other stakeholders to ensure that an appropriate position is reached and, where possible, that the use of cash retentions is reduced or eliminated.

Schools: Construction

Ian Paisley: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to encourage innovation when setting up new schools.

Ian Paisley: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to encourage charity involvement in setting up new schools.

Damian Hinds: The free schools programme was established to deliver choice, innovation and higher standards for parents by injecting fresh approaches and drawing in talent and expertise from a wide variety of groups and backgrounds. The department has delivered hundreds of new schools and provided thousands of good school places across the country. The free schools programme continues to encourage innovation, as well as building the capacity of some of the countries’ strongest trusts to raise education standards. In the most recent mainstream wave, the department approved an innovative partnership between Eton College and Star Academies to deliver free schools in Dudley, Oldham and Teesside for pupils aged 16 to 19. These schools will help increase the numbers of disadvantaged students progressing to top universities. The department also approved a new BRIT School North in Bradford, which will be the first of its kind in the region. This school will provide career pathways for creative industries in the North of England and is supported by industry leaders. The department has also committed to delivering a 16-19 mathematics school in every region, with eleven in total. Seven maths schools are already open with the remaining four schools approved to open in the future. These small schools, partnered with the most selective mathematics universities, will prepare some of the most mathematically able students for university and help to address shortages of highly skilled graduates in sectors which depend on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. To open a free school, the provider must establish an academy trust, which is set up as an exempt charity. In the latest mainstream free school wave, the department invited all new providers, including charities, to apply to open a new school. Similarly, in the latest alternative provision free school wave, the department invited applications from partnerships, including charities, alongside academy trusts and local authorities.

Department for Work and Pensions

Employment: Disability

Kirsten Oswald: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of disabled people who are projected to move into work following the removal of the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity mobility descriptor in the Work Capability Assessment in the next (a) 12 months, (b) two years and (c) five years.

Mims Davies: We are committed to ensuring our welfare system encourages and supports people into work, while providing a vital safety net for those who need it most. To reflect new flexibilities in the labour market and to ensure more people are supported to move closer to work, from 2025, we will remove the Mobilising activity used to assess Limited Capability for Work- and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) in the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). To ensure that those with the most significant mobilising limitations are still protected we will retain the LCWRA Risk regulations for physical health. This means that where work preparation would lead to a deterioration in a claimant’s physical health they would still meet the eligibility criteria for LCWRA. The changes to the WCA will come into effect from 2025 so impacts will be seen from 2025/26 onwards. The OBR judge that the cumulative rises in employment year-on-year from the removal of the LCWRA Mobilising descriptor are estimated to be 500 in 2025-26, 1,800 by 2026-27 and 5,900 by 2028-29. Adding to this, the expansion of the Universal Support scheme increases funding for placements of disabled people in existing vacancies and for a 'place and train' programme to support them. We expect this to increase employment by around 15,000 by 2028-29. Additional support will be offered to those moving from the LCWRA group into the Limited Capability for Work (LCW) group. This includes Employment Advice in NHS talking therapies, which combines psychological treatment and employment support for people with mental health conditions, and the Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care (IPSPC) programme, a supported employment model aimed at people with physical or common mental health disabilities to enable them to access paid jobs in the open labour market.

Social Security Benefits

Alex Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of (a) tax credits only, (b) income-based jobseekers allowance, (c) employment support allowance and tax credits, (d) income support, (e) housing benefit only, other than people in supported accommodation or temporary accommodation and (f) housing benefit and tax credits only his Department plans to send a migration notice to in the 2024-25 financial year.

Jo Churchill: Move to UC Notifications (household) Aut-202324/25JSA income based20,000ESA income based (and Child Tax Credits)90,000Income Support110,000Tax Credit & Housing Benefit120,000Tax Credit only10,000Housing Benefit only100,000Total440,000 Notes:This is the number of households DWP estimated it would notify to move to UC as of Autumn-23 (where households are couples only one member of the couple is counted).The benefits are in a hierarchy so we do not double count households claiming multiple benefits. E.g. if a household claims JSA/ESA/IS and Tax Credits or Housing Benefit they only appear in the JSA/IS/ESA line. Households in the Tax Credit and Housing lines do not include households claiming ESA, JSA or IS.Numbers are rounded to the nearest 10k.Over 500,000 Tax Credit only households are scheduled to be notified in 2023/24

Access to Work Programme

Sir Robert Buckland: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Access to Work claims for the cost of employment coaches for supported interns were (a) approved and (b) unpaid on 5 February 2024; and if he will make an assessment of the total value of these claims.

Mims Davies: The information requested about Access to Work claims for employment coaches for supported interns is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. However, Access to Work statistics include how many applications result in provision being approved from 2007/08 to 2022/23. Please see Table 3 of the Access to Work statistics. The latest Access to Work statistics can be found here.

Employment: Autism

Dr Luke Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress she has made on helping support adults with autism into work.

Mims Davies: We know that most autistic people want to have a job, and evidence shows that they bring many positive benefits to their employers. We are therefore taking positive steps to promote initiatives which help and support autistic adults to move closer to the labour market and into employment. The Buckland Review into Autism Employment focused on increasing the number of autistic people in high-quality and sustainable employment. Specifically, it focused on identifying barriers preventing autistic people from securing employment, retaining employment, and growing their careers; and on recommending actions to overcome those barriers. The evidence gathering stage of the review is now complete, and the review team has drawn the evidence together into a report and recommendations, ready for publication shortly. We are also supporting employers via Disability Confident to increase their understanding of how to recruit, retain and support disabled employees and those with long term health conditions. The scheme provides employers with the skills and knowledge to remove barriers that might be preventing disabled people, neurodivergent people and those with long term health conditions from accessing employment and allows them opportunities to fulﬁl their potential and realise their aspirations.The Spring Budget confirmed funding for a new employment programme called Universal Support.  Universal Support will use the proven supported employment model to support inactive disabled people, people with health conditions and people with additional barriers to employment into sustained work.In the Autumn Statement we announced that we are expanding the Universal Support scheme so it will provide support for 100k people a year once fully rolled out – increasing from 50k a year announced in Spring Budget 2023.Eligible autistic and learning-disabled people will be able to opt in to receive up to 12 months of “place and train” support - helping them move quickly into suitable work, followed with wraparound support to help them to sustain that employment for the longer-term. We are also continuing to run a series of programmes which include employment support for autistic people, such as the Work and Health Programme, Intensive Personalised Employment Support and Local Supported Employment.

Disability: Cost of Living

Vicky Foxcroft: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department plans to take to help support people with complex disabilities with the cost of living in the 2024-25 financial year.

Vicky Foxcroft: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department plans to take to help support disabled people who cannot work with the cost of living in the 2024-25 financial year.

Mims Davies: We understand those with complex disabilities require extra support which is why vulnerable people and their needs are rightly one of our priorities. This Government has demonstrated its commitment by providing one of the largest support packages in Europe. Taken together, support to households to help with the high cost of living is worth £104 billion over 2022/23 to 2024/25, which includes, among other support, two rounds of means-tested Cost of Living Payments, Disability Cost of Living Payments and Pensioner Cost of Living Payments over 2022/23 and 2023/24. Cost of Living Payments enabled us to target immediate further support during the rising cost of living pressures. The Government has also uprated benefits to reflect increased costs. Reducing inflation and growing the economy are the most effective way, longer term, to build a more prosperous future for all. This Government committed to halving the rate of inflation, and it has achieved that: inflation has fallen from 11.1% in October 2022 to 4 % in December 2023. Energy prices have significantly fallen in the past year alone and the Quarter 1 2024 price cap of £1,928 has more than halved compared to the previous year when the Quarter 1 2023 price cap peaked at £4,279.

Universal Credit: Private Rented Housing

Alison McGovern: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data her Department holds on the number of households in the private rented sector in receipt of universal credit with the housing element in payment; how many and what proportion of those households have rents which exceed the local housing allowance (LHA); and what the median average gap is between the rent and the LHA for those households where rent exceeds the LHA, for each local authority area in (a) England, (b) Scotland and (c) Wales for the most recent period for which data is available.

Alison McGovern: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households in the private rented sector are in receipt of housing benefit; how many and what proportion of those households have rents that exceed the local housing allowance (LHA); and what the median difference was between the cost of rent and the LHA for households where rent exceeds the LHA in each local authority area in the latest period for which data is available.

Mims Davies: The information requested if not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.Government spends around £30bn annually on housing support. In addition, Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates will be increased from April 2024 to the 30th percentile of local market rents. This will mean 1.6 million private renters in receipt of Housing Benefit or Universal Credit (UC) will gain on average around £800 a year in additional help towards their rental costs in 2024-25. This is at a cost of £7bn over five years.The Secretary of State has committed to review LHA rates annually. That review includes consideration of current rents, as well as the broader fiscal context. LHA rates are not intended to meet all rents in all areas: instead, it ensures that claimants in similar circumstances and area are treated the same. For those who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs and require additional support Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) are available from local authorities. Since 2011 the Government has provided nearly £1.7 billion to local authorities for households who need additional support with their housing costs.

Personal Independence Payment

Vicky Foxcroft: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many personal independence payment claims are outstanding.

Mims Davies: On 31st October 2023, there were 288,000 Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims outstanding. This includes 257,000 new claims awaiting a decision by a Case Manager and 31,000 current claims due for reassessment.

Access to Work Programme

Vicky Foxcroft: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department holds information on the number of Access to Work claims for job coaching support for interns that have been approved but are unpaid as of 2 February 2024.

Mims Davies: The information requested about the number of Access to Work claims for job coaching support for interns that have been approved but are unpaid as of 2 February 2024 is not readily available and to provide it would incur a disproportionate cost. However, Access to Work statistics include how many applications result in provision being approved from 2007/08 to 2022/23. Please see Table 3 of the Access to Work statistics. The latest Access to Work statistics can be found here.

Social Security Benefits: Forms

Mary Kelly Foy: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support is available for claimants unable to complete his Department's forms.

Mims Davies: We aim to provide a tailored service that recognises those with complex needs at any point throughout their journey and ensures appropriate support is made available quickly. For customers who are unable to complete forms themselves a home visit from a visiting officer can be arranged, if they wish to retain autonomy and not use an appointee. Customers claiming Universal Credit can also be supported by the universal support scheme.An example of the support available is; Getting help with an application - Understanding Universal Credit Further support for other service lines can be found on Welcome to GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) DWP continuously reviews and improves the service for people who claim or seek to claim benefits to ensure services are accessible and responsive to citizen needs.

Access to Work Programme

Sir Robert Buckland: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time was for Access to Work claims for the costs of employment coaches for supported interns to be paid in the latest period for which data is available.

Mims Davies: The information requested about Access to Work payment journey times for the cost of employment coaches for supported interns in the latest period is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. However, the Access to Work statistics includes number of people who received a payment for any Access to Work provision from 2007/08 to 2022/23. Please see Table 6 of the Access to Work statistics. The latest Access to Work statistics can be found here.

Access to Work Programme

Vicky Foxcroft: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average waiting time was for a payment to be made through the Access to Work programme for the cost of employment coaches for supported interns in the latest period for which data is available.

Mims Davies: The information requested about Access to Work payment journey times for the cost of employment coaches for supported interns in the latest period is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. However, the Access to Work statistics includes number of people who received a payment for any Access to Work provision from 2007/08 to 2022/23. Please see Table 6 of the Access to Work statistics. The latest Access to Work statistics can be found here.

Food Banks

Charlotte Nichols: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will hold discussions with food bank providers on the potential merits of publishing data on the number of people who used a foodbank on at least one occasion in every month of (a) 2022 and (b) 2023.

Jo Churchill: This government takes the issue of food security very seriously and is committed to understanding and addressing food poverty which is why we published official estimates of foodbank use for the first time in March 2023. The next release of the Households Below Average Income statistics, covering the year 2022/23, is due in March 2024. This will include updated national statistics on both food security and food bank use.

Access to Work Programme

Vicky Foxcroft: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Access to Work claims are outstanding.

Mims Davies: At close of business on 01st February 2024, there were 26,924 Access to Work applications awaiting a decision.

Disability Living Allowance: Children

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the time taken to process child Disability Living Allowance claims.

Mims Davies: The Department has taken steps to recruit further resources and to also re-deploy from within the business to meet demand and reduce journey times. This began in October 2023 and continues throughout Quarter 4 2023/24. This is beginning to positively impact waiting and journey times.

Disability Living Allowance: Children

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions he has had with the NHS on the impact of its timescales for providing medical evidence for child Disability Living Allowance claims on the time taken to process those claims.

Mims Davies: The Department for Work and Pensions regularly talk with external stakeholders, including the NHS on a wide range of topics. To ensure they have sufficient information to make accurate decisions on a child’s entitlement to Disability Living Allowance as quickly as possible, decision makers will request evidence from a number of sources. These include health and educational professionals involved in the care of the child. The Department of Work and Pensions also employ medical advisors who provide comprehensive guidance to decision makers.

Disability Living Allowance: Children

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department will take steps to recruit staff to process claims for Disability Living Allowance for children.

Paul Maynard: There is planned recruitment into Disability Living Allowance for children in Quarter 4 of 2023/24. This recruitment activity is progressing for both AO Case Workers and EO Case Managers. There are also plans to supplement the external recruitment with resource from the Flexible Resource Team.

Workplace Pensions

Sir Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Q338 of the evidence given by the Minister for Pensions on 10 January 2024, HC144, what the (a) scope of and (b) timeline for the extensive piece of work he has commissioned on indexation of pre-1997 savings from pension contributions is; and whether he plans to publish the findings of this work.

Paul Maynard: While all pensions legislation is kept under review as a matter of course, there are currently no plans to amend the Pension Protection Fund rules on pre-97 indexation of pension contributions. The evidence given by the Minister for Pensions, on 10 January 2024, was clear that these are complex issues which will need careful consideration. DWP will continue to consider this issue, determining the scope and taking the time required for full consideration. There is no intention of publishing this advice.

Pensions: Death

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will have discussions with The Pensions Regulator on ensuring that death in service benefits are paid expediently to beneficiaries.

Paul Maynard: Where pension schemes offer a death in service benefit, I completely understand how important it will be for beneficiaries that they are paid promptly. The time this takes will vary depending on the circumstances, but of course it should be reasonable. If anyone thinks that a pension scheme is not acting reasonably in the processing of its promised benefits they should contact the scheme, which is required to have an internal disputes resolution process. They may also wish to contact the Pensions Ombudsman who will consider how best they can help.

Universal Credit

Grahame Morris: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 2 February 2024 to Question 12040 on Universal Credit, if she will extend data sharing to include the details of (a) addresses receiving housing allowance and (b) people receiving that allowance living in private rented accommodation to local authorities with selective licencing schemes.

Mims Davies: DWP already shares UC data with Local Authorities for various reasons where we have legal powers and a legal basis to do so and where the sharing can be done in compliance with all other UK GDPR requirements. DWP is committed to maximising the use of its data, where it is appropriate and legal to do so to meet the primary objectives of: - reducing fraud and error- creating the right incentives to get more people into work- protecting the most vulnerable in our society and- delivering fairness to those claiming benefit and to the taxpayer DWP works closely with DLUHC on housing quality, whilst in principle we are willing to consider whether UC data could be shared with Local Authorities for selective licensing purposes or other Private Rented Sector enforcement measures, we would need to see a detailed proposal and would make decisions on a case-by-case basis.

Employment Data Lab

Alison McGovern: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Answer of 17 March 2023 to Question 163847 on Employment Data Lab, when he plans to publish the two further evaluations.

Jo Churchill: One of the evaluations was published on 5 December 2023 [https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/employment-data-lab]. The publication date of the next Employment Data Lab report is yet to be confirmed

Sector-based Work Academy Programme

Duncan Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many sector-based work academies have taken place in total and in each (a) country and (b) region of the UK since the programme began.

Jo Churchill: Sector-based work academies were launched in August 2011 in England and January 2012 in Scotland. Regular statistical releases on sector-based work academies, covering participation by those on legacy unemployment benefits, began in 2011 and ended in 2017. These statistics can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/employment-schemes-work-experience-sector-based-work-academy-and-skills-conditionality-starts-to-november-2017 The scheme was relaunched as Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) in July 2020 as part of the Government’s Plan for Jobs. Due to data limitations, we are unable to provide a geographical breakdown for SWAPs that took place before the start of the 2021/22 financial year. Data for the financial years 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24 to date shows that, as of 28 January 2024, there were a total of 266,330 starts to a Sector-based Work Academy Programme. The breakdowns of these starts are provided in the attached tables. Final start figures for 2023/24 will be available early next financial year. Notes on the data:Attached are tables listing the number of SWAP starts to date by Country, Region, Local Authority, Sector and Age band. The figures used are correct as of 28 January 2024 and these figures have been rounded according to departmental standards. These figures reflect the number of starts by claimants in receipt of Universal Credit (UC), Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) or Income Support (IS). It is important to note that the information provided shows the current home location of the person who has started a SWAP. For starts by those in receipt of JSA, ESA or IS, due to data limitations a location cannot be assigned to these starts and as such they are categorised as unknown within the figures. SWAPs are run in England and Scotland, where a person’s current home location is outside of this they have also been categorised as unknown. Although care is taken when processing and recording SWAP starts, the data collected might be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any clerical recording system, but is provided in the interests of transparency.Attachment (xlsx, 37.0KB)

Universal Credit: Veterans

Steve McCabe: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of how many veterans claim Universal Credit.

Jo Churchill: It is not yet possible to produce reliable estimates of the overall number or proportion of UC claimants who are currently serving in the Armed Forces or who have served in the past. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) started collecting data on the Armed Forces status of Universal Credit (UC) claimants in Great Britain (GB) in April 2021. At first only new claimants were asked about their Armed Forces status. From June 2021 onwards, other UC claimants reporting changes in their work and earnings have also been able to report their status. From July 2021 onwards, UC agents have also been able to record claimants’ Armed Forces status if they are told about this via other means such as journal messages, face-to-face meetings or by telephone. Therefore, data on Armed Forces status has only been recorded for a proportion of the UC claimants. In addition, it should be noted that Armed forces status is self-reported by claimants and is not verified by the Ministry of Defence or Office for Veterans’ Affairs. A claimant’s status can be recorded as “currently serving”, “served in the past”, “not served” or “prefer not to say”.

Social Security Benefits: Fundraising

Stephen Farry: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether (a) GoFundMe and (b) other fundraisers set up by a friend or relative can impact on a claimant's access to (i) universal credit, (ii) child benefit, (iii) housing benefit and (iv) other social security benefits.

Jo Churchill: A lump sum received as a result of a fund-raising campaign through GoFundMe or other similar platforms would be treated as capital for the assessment of means-tested benefits (Universal Credit, Income Support, Housing Benefit, income-related Employment and Support Allowance and income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance). Such a payment would only affect benefit entitlement if the claimant’s total capital exceeds the lower limit of £6,000, then a tariff will be applied to reduce the means -tested benefit award. For pension age benefits (Housing Benefit for pensioners and Pension Credit) the tariff would only be applied where the total capital held exceeds £10,000.Where the lump sum payment means that the claimant’s capital exceeds the upper capital limit of £16,000 then the individual will no longer be eligible for means-tested benefits, although there is no limit for Pension Credit.In certain specific circumstances money received through such channels may be eligible for a formal disregard. Charitable or voluntary payments which are made or due to be made at regular intervals are fully “disregarded” (ignored) in Income Support, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance and Universal Credit.

Ministry of Defence

Army: Vehicles

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his Department's News story entitled 500 trucks rapidly procured for British Army operations, published on 3 February 2024, what variants of HX truck are being procured under the contract.

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his Department's News story entitled 500 trucks rapidly procured for British Army operations, published on 3 February 2024, what the proportion is of UK content in the new trucks.

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his Department's News story entitled 500 trucks rapidly procured for British Army operations, published on 3 February 2024, where the new trucks are being built.

James Cartlidge: The HX2 8x8 trucks were procured at pace, to support military activity. There was no UK-made option that could have been delivered as quickly. As such, these vehicles, made by Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles (RMMV) in Austria, have only a nominal amount of UK content, related to operational configuration work in Doncaster. Support will be provided in the UK by RMVV UK.

Armoured Fighting Vehicles: Decommissioning

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the (a) original and (b) current out of service date is for the Army’s Foxhound vehicles.

James Cartlidge: Foxhound Protected Patrol Vehicle: Original Out of Service Date – 2030Current Out of Service Date – 2030

Ministry of Defence: Procurement

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to Q62 of the oral evidence by Lt General Sir Robert Magowan to the Committee of Public Accounts on 22 January 2024, HC 451, when he plans to make a decision on the potential cancellation of procurement contracts.

James Cartlidge: The assumptions for the Department's costs and budget over the next 10 years are uncertain, so we are developing plans for different scenarios. It would be precipitous to cancel programmes now.To reduce the risk to value for money, the Department is monitoring levels of contractually committed spend carefully and continues to operate a robust approvals framework to ensure new commitments do not constrain our ability to reduce costs in the future or to choose to fund different capabilities.

Armoured Fighting Vehicles: Decommissioning

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the (a) original and (b) current out of service date is for the Army’s Pinzgauer vehicles.

James Cartlidge: Original Out of Service Date – 2030Current Out of Service Date – 2030

Ministry of Defence: Procurement

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to Q84 of the oral evidence given by David Williams to the Public Accounts Committee on 22 January 2024, HC 451, what the other key features of the new procurement model are.

James Cartlidge: We set out our approach to acquisition reform in the Defence Command Paper. We are putting an increased emphasis on time to delivery so that we can get capability into the hands of our Armed Forces when it is needed. Key features of a reformed model for acquisition are expected to include: a cultural shift that puts an increased emphasis on pace; driving pace through spiral development; a closer relationship with industry; and earlier expert advice to set programmes up for success.

LGBT Veterans Independent Review

Steve McCabe: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when he last met with representatives of Fighting with Pride on the issue of adequate compensation for LGBT veterans following Lord Etherton’s review.

Dr Andrew Murrison: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to question 12239 on 7 February 2024.LGBT Veterans Independent Review (docx, 15.3KB)

Armed Forces: Candidates

Luke Pollard: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what rules on standing for (a) local and (b) national political office apply to (i) regular and (ii) reserve personnel.

Dr Andrew Murrison: Local Government ElectionsRegular and Reserve Serving personnel may not accept membership of any local authority or allow themselves to be nominated for election to any such body, without the permission of Defence. National ElectionsRegular Armed Forces personnel and members of the Reserve Forces when serving on a full-time service commitment must apply for permission to retire voluntarily or resign or be granted a free discharge from their Service before their formal adoption as a Parliamentary candidate Such personnel must complete their last day of service before their formal adoption as a candidate

Armoured Fighting Vehicles: Safety

Holly Lynch: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 23 January 2024 to Question 10491 on Armoured Fighting Vehicles: Accidents, how he plans to monitor implementation of the recommendations made by the Defence Safety Authority Service Inquiry into the fatal accident involving a Scimitar Fighting Vehicle on Salisbury Plain Training Area - 15 October 2021, published on 23rd November 2023.

Dr Andrew Murrison: The welfare of our personnel is of the utmost importance and all 52 of the recommendations in this report have been accepted and assigned an appropriate Owner within the Department. The Owner will, when appropriate, submit their evidence to the Defence Safety Authority, where the Director General will consider closing the outstanding action.

Defence Equipment

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 37 of the National Audit Office's report entitled The Equipment Plan 2023-2033, HC 315, published on 4 December 2023, what steps he is taking to improve the red rating from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority of MODNet Evolve.

James Cartlidge: Since the last Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) review, the MODNET Evolve programme has appointed a new Senior Responsible Owner and Programme Director. The governance regime has been strengthened and is more robust, and the performance of the programme continues to improve. In accordance with the IPA’s recommendation, the programme has been brigaded into two technically independent capability streams, covering the Official and Secret security tiers. The primary MODNET Official contract was signed in December and there is a clear, credible plan to migrate to the new supplier, and realise a 60% reduction in running costs. The future Secret requirement is in the process of being revalidated to ensure the project meets Defence needs and has the flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing threats, technology, and evolving user need. An IPA review is planned for April, where it is expected that the programme’s rating will improve.

Meteor Missiles: Repairs and Maintenance

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to Q65 of the oral evidence by Lt General Sir Robert Magowan to the Committee of Public Accounts on 22 January 2024, HC 451, when he plans to make a decision on whether to complete a midlife upgrade of the Meteor long-range air-to-air missile.

James Cartlidge: The UK, together with the five other Meteor Partner Nations, continues to assess Mid Life options for Meteor and expects to reach a formal decision on the way forward by the end of 2024.

Panther Command and Liaison Vehicle: Decommissioning

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence,  what the (a) original and (b) current out of service date is for the Army’s Panther vehicles.

James Cartlidge: Both the original and current out of service date for Panther is 2037.

Armoured Fighting Vehicles: Decommissioning

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence,  what the (a) original and (b) current out of service date is for the Army’s remaining Stormer Armoured Vehicles.

James Cartlidge: Both the original and current out of service date is 2026.

Armoured Fighting Vehicles: Decommissioning

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence,  what the (a) original and (b) current out of service date is for the Army’s (i) Mastiff, (ii) Ridgeback and (iii) Wolfhound protected mobility vehicles.

James Cartlidge: The original out of service dates was 2024 and the current out of service date is 2028.

Armoured Fighting Vehicles: Decommissioning

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the (a) original and (b) current out of service date is for the Army’s Bulldog vehicle.

James Cartlidge: Both the original and current out of service date for Bulldog is 2030.

Defence Suppliers Forum

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 5 of the Defence Suppliers' Forum publication entitled Collaboration Charter, published on 22 November 2023, how many joint study days (a) have taken place and (b) are planned to take place.

James Cartlidge: To date, the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff for Military Capability has organised joint industry study days and workshops on 7 November 2022, 23 February 2023, 31 June 2023 and 14 November 23. Future dates planned are 22 February 2024 and 12 Jun 2024 and roughly every quarter from then on. There will be further engagements and workshops by the Front Line Commands as part of routine business that will also deliver the intent of the Collaboration Charter.

Ministry of Defence: Procurement

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 37 of the National Audit Office's report entitled The Equipment Plan 2023-2033, HC 315, published on 4 December 2023, what steps he is taking to improve the red rating from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority of the Core Production Capability.

James Cartlidge: Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) delivery confidence assessments reflect a judgement at a particular point in time. They do not represent the likelihood or not of successful delivery but are a representation of the level of risk and what further mitigation may be required in order to reduce such risk.The red rating for the Core Production Capability programme reflects its ambitious timelines. The Department is working closely with Rolls-Royce Submarines to improve delivery confidence, including by increasing production rates and improving manufacturing resilience. The IPA has confirmed the ongoing actions are appropriate.

Defence Suppliers Forum

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the Defence Suppliers' Forum publication entitled Collaboration Charter, published on 22 November 2023, when he plans to assess the effectiveness of that Charter.

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 5 of the Defence Suppliers' Forum publication entitled Collaboration Charter, published on 22 November 2023, what (a) operational and (b) industry lessons (i) have taken place and (ii) are planned to take place.

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 6 of the Defence Suppliers' Forum publication entitled Collaboration Charter, published on 22 November 2023, which training exercises has in-service feedback been shared with industry partners for since the publication of that charter.

James Cartlidge: The Ministry of Defence (MOD)-Industry charter is our first step in delivering the Defence Command Paper Refresh’s intent of building a new partnership with industry and builds on ongoing work to bring industry earlier into the capabiltiy development cycle. The charter was only signed in November 2024 and with Industry we are working through the implementation plan. We have made progress already by establishing classified workshops over the last 18 months, including one on Ukraine lessons, and by inviting industry to particate this year in our Planned Force Testing event for the first time. Going forward there will be further Head Office led quarterly classified workshops to share operational challenges and lessons. We will assess the effectiveness through engagement at the Defence Suppliers Forum and by visibly seeing a fundamentally different approach and behaviours between MOD and Industry.

Armed Forces: Uniforms

Sammy Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 23 January 2023 to Question 10468 on Armed Forces: Uniforms, if his Department will end the sourcing of bearskin from Canada.

James Cartlidge: In the absence of an effective replacement, the Department will continue to purchase bearskin ceremonial caps made from pelts sourced from Canada, providing they are by-products of legal and licensed hunts and can continue to be imported into the UK.

Guided Weapons: Procurement

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 37 of the National Audit Office's report entitled The Equipment Plan 2023-2033, HC 315, published on 4 December 2023, what steps he is taking to improve the red rating from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority of Brimstone 3.

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 37 of the National Audit Office's report entitled The Equipment Plan 2023-2033, HC 315, published on 4 December 2023, what steps he is taking to improve the red rating from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority of Spearcap 3.

James Cartlidge: Delivery confidence assessments reflect a judgement at that particular point in time. They do not represent the likelihood or not of successful delivery but are indicative of the level of risk and what further mitigation may be required to reduce such risk. SPEAR 3 and BS3 both have senior level engagement, along with a new 50% SRO and 100% dedicated Programme Director in post; industry too, is focused on successful delivery of the programmes. Both programmes will both be undergoing an IPA review later this month.

Ministry of Defence: Ministers' Private Offices

Sarah Olney: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 5 February 2024 to Question 11388 on Ministry of Defence: Ministers' Private Offices, what the cost of the 2022 refurbishment works was; and what those refurbishment works entailed.

James Cartlidge: The cost of refurbishment works to Ministers’ Private Offices in 2022 totalled c£27,000. The works comprised wallpapering and replacement carpets.

Falkland Islands: Security

Mr Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of the (a) availability and (b) readiness of the Armed Forces in relation to the security of the Falkland Islands.

James Heappey: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question 9446 on 22 January 2024 to the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell).Falkland Islands: Armed Forces (docx, 14.7KB)

NATO Countries: Defence

Mr Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will hold discussions with his NATO counterparts on increasing defence spending, in the context of further potential international conflict.

James Heappey: We are in a new era of global threats to the international order, most notably Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. The UK has led the conversation on defence spending at NATO, including at last year's Summit in Vilnius, where Leaders agreed a new Defence Investment Pledge to spend at least 2% GDP on defence, and to do so urgently. The Government remains committed to spending at least 2% of GDP on defence, and the Prime Minister has set the aspiration to increase defence spending to 2.5%, when the economic and fiscal conditions allow. Now is the time for all Allied and democratic nations across the world to ensure their defence spending is growing.

Gurkhas: Veterans

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether the Tripartite talks between his Department, Gurkha veterans and the government of Nepal are expected to be concluded this month.

Dr Andrew Murrison: The Ministry of Defence (MOD) highly values the Service of all members of the Armed Forces, including the Gurkhas who have a long and distinguished history of service to the UK, both at home and overseas. The issues raised by members of the Gurkha veteran community are historical and complex. The MOD takes its responsibilities to our Gurkha veterans very seriously. We continue to welcome the highly constructive engagement we have had through the Bilateral Gurkha Veteran Committee and remain committed to supporting them and their families during and after their Service with the British Army. There is currently no end date to conclude these discussions.

Germany: Armed Forces

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many German personnel are training in the UK with the (a) Army, (b) Royal Navy and (c) Royal Air Force.

James Heappey: As of 1 February 2024 there are 26 German personnel training with the British Army, one German person training with the Royal Navy and 22 German personnel training with the Royal Air Force, for a combined total of 49 German personnel training with the British Armed Forces.

Germany: Joint Exercises

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many UK-German joint military exercises took place in 2023.

James Heappey: The UK and Germany undertook five joint military exercises in 2023. It should be noted this answer excludes multinational exercises (NATO etc.)

Armed Forces: Medical Records

Sir John Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make it his policy to allow (a) next of kin and (b) executors of deceased armed forces personnel to gain access to the (i) medical records and (ii) diagnostic tests of those personnel that were completed before the Access to Health Records Act 1990 came into force.

Dr Andrew Murrison: There are no plans to change Ministry of Defence policy which is consistent with wider UK practice across the medical profession. There is an ethical obligation to respect a patient’s confidentiality after death and access to deceased patients’ health records, including for Armed Forces personnel, is governed by the Access to Health Records Act 1990. Under the terms of the Act, someone will only be entitled to access a deceased person’s health records created after 1 November 1991 if they are either a personal representative (the executor or administrator of the deceased person’s estate) or someone who has a claim resulting from the death (this could be a relative or another person). The only exception is if disclosure of medical records created before 1 November 1991 is needed to make intelligible any record created after that date.

Army: Equality

Sir John Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many people are employed by the Army in roles relating to diversity and inclusion as of 31 January 2024.

Dr Andrew Murrison: As at 31 January 2024, the Army has 13 people employed in roles dedicated to Diversity and Inclusion.

Yemen: Military Intervention

Neale Hanvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 19 January 2024 to Question 9950 on Yemen: Military Intervention, which conflicts are covered by his Department's tracker database of alleged violations of international law.

James Heappey: The "tracker" covers alleged IHL violations during the Saudi Led Coalition's Air Campaign in Yemen.

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Leasehold: Reform

Sir Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of abolishing marriage value under schedule two of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill on the finances of freeholders.

Sir Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of abolishing marriage value under schedule two of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill on the transfer of wealth overseas by freeholders.

Sir Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an estimate of the average value of residential properties with remaining leases of (a) 80 to 71, (b) 70 to 61, (c) 60 to 51, (d) 50 to 41, (e) 40 to 31, (f) 30 to 21, (g) 20 to 11 years and (h) 10 or fewer years.

Lee Rowley: The impact assessment for the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill can be found here. This includes an estimate of the impact of removing marriage value.The impact assessment also contains information on estimates of the aggregate number of leases below 80 years.

Council Tax: Tax Rates and Bands

Dehenna Davison: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of updating the valuations upon which Council Tax bands are set.

Simon Hoare: As set out previously, the Government has no plans to conduct a revaluation of council tax bands.The Government remains committed to improving the local government finance landscape in the next Parliament. The Government confirmed in the Policy Statement published ahead of the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement that in response to calls for stability the Government is prioritising stability in this Parliament and will work with local government and the wider sector on the new challenges and opportunities they face in the next Parliament.

Public Sector: Publicity

Richard Fuller: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what guidance his Department issues on the publication by local authorities of public notices; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to allow the publication of such notices online.

Simon Hoare: Statutory notices are an important means for ensuring that the public is kept informed of decisions by their council which may affect their quality of life, local services or amenities, or their property. The Government has no current plans to legislate on changing provisions on statutory notices.

Solar Power: Planning Permission

Richard Fuller: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring the refusal of applications for planning permission for solar farms in excess of 50 MW where financing has not been secured.

Lee Rowley: In deciding whether or not to grant an application for development consent for above 50MW electricity generation stations such as solar farms, the Energy Secretary of State must have regard under section 104 of the Planning Act 2008 to any relevant National Policy Statement where one has effect.In addition to this, and also where decisions are taken where no National Policy Statement has effect, the Secretary of State must also have regard to any other matters which are both important and relevant to the decision which may, where compulsory acquisition powers are requested, include details of how the project in question is proposed to be funded.Revised Energy National Policy Statements were designated on 24 January 2024.Whilst I appreciate the point my Honourable Friend is making, the planning system upholds a long-standing principle of planning considerations being the lawful basis in making a determination.

Domestic Visits: Tamworth

Sarah Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 5 February 2024 to Question 11923 on Levelling Up Fund: Tamworth Borough Council, on what date the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Levelling Up) visited Tamworth.

Sarah Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 5 February 2024 to Question 11923 on Levelling Up Fund: Tamworth Borough Council, whether the visit of the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Levelling Up) to Tamworth was an official ministerial visit.

Sarah Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 5 February 2024 to Question 11923 on Levelling Up Fund: Tamworth Borough Council, how the visit of the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Levelling Up) to Tamworth was paid for.

Jacob Young: It was a political visit made on 4 January 2024 at no cost to the taxpayer.

Levelling Up Fund

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans he has for future rounds of the Levelling Up Fund.

Jacob Young: Policy announcements will be set out in the usual way.I was delighted that Portsmouth City Council was successful in round one of the Levelling Up Fund, with their bid for a new passenger terminal at Portsmouth Port and I was delighted to visit the Port in October last year to see the new facilities.

Local Government: Debts

Mr Tobias Ellwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to support local councils with high debt levels.

Simon Hoare: Local government in England will see an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £4.5 billion next year, or 7.5% in cash terms, an above-inflation increase, rising from £60.2 billion in 2023-24 to up to £64.7 billion in 2024-25. Councils must manage the costs of borrowing as part of their overall financial position, and should ensure that all borrowing is prudent, affordable, and sustainable.The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act provides new powers for central government to step in when councils take on excessive risk through disproportionate debt. It will also provide powers to address risk from historic practices. We stand ready to speak to any council that has concerns about its ability to manage its finances or faces pressures it has not planned for.

Housing: Construction

Mike Amesbury: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of home warranty policies in covering the costs of building structural faults.

Mike Amesbury: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the regulatory framework for home warranty policies covering the costs of building structural faults.

Lee Rowley: A new build warranty is issued to protect homeowners from the cost of fixing structural defects caused by faulty materials or poor workmanship during construction. Providers structure warranties acceptable to the circumstances, and it is for developers to determine whether to sell warranties or not. Mortgage providers require new build homes to be sold with a warranty for the buyer to secure a mortgage so in practice most new build homes will be sold with some form of warranty purchased by the developer with the home buyer the beneficiary of the policy. Through the Building Safety Act 2022, the Government has created a power that will allow the Secretary of State to set minimum standards for all new build warranties and penalties for those not complying. The Government is working with the sector to take these changes forward, and will provide more detail in due course.

Social Rented Housing: EU Nationals

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to his Department’s consultation on reforms to social housing allocations, published on 30 January 2024, whether (a) EEA, (b) Swiss citizens and (c) their non-EEA/Swiss family members with pre-settled or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme (i) have equal treatment rights and (ii) will continue to be eligible for social housing under the proposals set out in that consultation.

Jacob Young: If a person has equal treatment protection in matters of housing under the Withdrawal Agreement, the EEA-EFTA Separation Agreement or the Swiss Citizens’ Rights Agreement, they will meet the UK connection test as proposed in the consultation on social housing allocations reform.The UK connection test will only need to be met by individuals who make an application for social housing, not the entire household.

Business: Bournemouth

Mr Tobias Ellwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to support high street businesses in Bournemouth.

Jacob Young: Bournemouth is the recipient of a £21.7 million Town Deal which incorporates several projects that are indirectly supporting High Street businesses. Boscombe High Street is receiving £328,000 of investment via the Town Deal for local shop owners to improve their store frontage and breathe new life into the area by improving the appearance of buildings, public spaces and areas.In 2023, Bournemouth received nearly £20 million from the Levelling Up Fund for seafront regeneration projects including the installation of digital communications along the promenade to encourage pop-up businesses in a key tourist area. Bournemouth has received over £4 million from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, of which £2.5 million will fund business support to businesses in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole area including those in town and district centres.

Treasury

Tax Avoidance

Mr Ranil Jayawardena: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many (a) promoters and (b) operators of schemes subject to the loan charge have been prosecuted.

Nigel Huddleston: Promotion or operation of mass marketed tax avoidance schemes is not in, or of itself, a criminal offence. However, there are a range of offences which might be committed by those who promote tax avoidance schemes or advise on their use.On that basis, to date, while there have been no prosecutions of individuals for the promotion and/or operation of schemes subject to the Loan Charge, one individual involved in selling Disguised Remuneration schemes subject to the Loan Charge has been convicted for a related offence. Also, a number of individuals are currently under criminal investigation by HMRC for offences linked to schemes subject to the Loan Charge.In addition to schemes subject to the Loan Charge, since 1 April 2016, more than 20 individuals have been convicted for offences relating to arrangements which have been promoted and marketed as tax avoidance. These have resulted in over 100 years of custodial sentences and 9 years of suspended sentences being ordered, the majority of which relate to promoters.Prosecutions are only one type of intervention available to HMRC where they identify concerns.

Fuels: Excise Duties

Sarah Olney: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish his latest estimate of the annual cost to the Exchequer of the Rural Fuel Duty Relief scheme.

Gareth Davies: The Government estimates that Rural Fuel Duty Relief had an Exchequer cost of £5m in 2020/21 (the latest year of estimation). The government regularly publishes details of non-structural tax reliefs at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/main-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs

Beer: Excise Duties

Layla Moran: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of increasing Draught Duty Relief to 20% on (a) pubs and (b) small and independent brewers.

Gareth Davies: Draught Relief, introduced under the new alcohol duty system, provides a reduction in the duty on draught products and helps to level the playing field between pubs and supermarkets, allowing pubs and brewers to price their on-trade products more competitively. The Brexit Pubs Guarantee ensures that draught products will always be subject to lower duty than their supermarket equivalent. The Government is closely monitoring the impact of the recent reforms, including Draught Relief, and will evaluate the impact of the new rates and structures three years after the changes took effect on 1 August 2023. This will allow time to understand the impacts on the alcohol market, and for HMRC to gather useful and accurate data with which to evaluate the effects of the reform. As with all taxes, the Government keeps the alcohol duty system under review during its yearly Budget process.

Income Tax

Mr Gregory Campbell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people paid the higher rate of income tax in each year since 2018.

Nigel Huddleston: This data is available in HMRC’s published Income Tax Liabilities statistics for the estimated number of taxpayers per tax band. This includes outturn estimates from 2018-2019 up to 2020-2021 as well as projected estimates from 2021-22 to 2023-24. This information is contained in Table 2.1, Number of individual Income tax payers, tab ‘2_1_IT_payers_by_demographic’, column F, published 29th June 2023: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/number-of-individual-income-taxpayers-by-marginal-rate-gender-and-age .

Tax Avoidance

Mr Ranil Jayawardena: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will commission an independent review into the loan charge.

Mr Ranil Jayawardena: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will have discussions with HMRC on ending actions on the loan charge.

Nigel Huddleston: The Loan Charge was introduced to ensure that people who had not had tax deducted from their incomes paid their fair share. The Government has already had an independent review. In 2019 Lord Morse led an independent review of the Loan Charge and its implementation. Lord Morse had full discretion over how the review was run, whom he consulted, and the recommendations made. The Government accepted 19 of his 20 recommendations, which benefited more than 30,000 people, including around 9,500 who were removed from the scope of the Loan Charge entirely. As well as recommending changes to the policy, Lord Morse was clear that the Loan Charge was necessary, in the public interest and should remain in force.

Rent a Room Scheme

Caroline Ansell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of raising the threshold on the Rent a Room scheme.

Nigel Huddleston: Rent a room relief provides an effective incentive for people to make spare rooms available for rent. In 2016, the threshold was raised to give an income tax exemption on income of up to £7,500 for individuals who let furnished accommodation in their only or main residence. This aligns with the Government’s objectives of supporting living standards and increasing the availability of low-cost housing. It also reduces and simplifies the tax and administration burden for those affected and has taken some taxpayers out of self assessment entirely. The Government does not currently have evidence that increasing the rent a room relief threshold above £7,500 would further encourage spare rooms to be made available for rent. As with all aspects of the tax system, the Government will keep this under review.

Tax Avoidance

Mr Ranil Jayawardena: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make it his policy to recover tax avoided through disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes from people who (a) recommended, (b) promoted and (c) operated those schemes.

Nigel Huddleston: HMRC has taken action to tackle the promoters of avoidance schemes, implementing a wide range of actions to disrupt their activities and supply chains, including publishing the details of promoters. However, liability for the tax is always that of the individual and there is no legal mechanism to transfer disguised remuneration liabilities from the scheme users to the promoters. As of 31 December, HMRC has published the details of 59 promoters, 23 directors and details of 64 tax avoidance schemes.HMRC has also issued over 20 stop notices to promoters and published details of 16 of these arrangements. Publishing this information supports taxpayers in identifying tax avoidance schemes so they can steer clear of or exit them. The current Finance Bill is introducing tougher consequences for promoters of tax avoidance. This includes a new criminal offence to strengthen the deterrent to promoting tax avoidance, making it clear promoters must stop promoting these schemes, and a power enabling HMRC to act more quickly to disqualify directors of companies involved in tax avoidance.

Pensions: Death

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will take steps to ensure that beneficiaries of death in service pensions do not pay additional tax when there is a delay in the receipt of funds.

Nigel Huddleston: Where a member or beneficiary of a pension scheme dies and a lump sum death benefit is not paid to an individual within two years, the payment is taxable at the individuals marginal rate.  The Chancellor has no plans to revisit these rules.

VAT: Tax Rates and Bands

Mr Tobias Ellwood: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a sliding scale of VAT rates for companies according to revenue.

Nigel Huddleston: The Government recognises that accounting for VAT can be a burden on small businesses. This is why, at £85,000, the UK has a higher VAT registration threshold than any EU Member State and the second highest in the OECD. This keeps the majority of UK businesses out of VAT altogether. Views on the VAT registration threshold are divided and the case for change has been regularly reviewed over the years. The Government consulted on how the design of the VAT registration threshold could better incentivise growth. However, there was no clear option for reform. The Government announced at Autumn Budget 2022 that the VAT threshold will be maintained at its current level of £85,000 until 31 March 2026.

Banks: East Devon

Simon Jupp: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to help prevent the closure of banks in East Devon constituency.

Simon Jupp: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department has had discussions with Cash Access UK on the opening hours of banking hubs.

Bim Afolami: The Government believes that all customers, wherever they live, should have appropriate access to banking and cash services, and I would like to assure you that I am monitoring the issue of branch closures closely. Whilst decisions to open or close a branch are commercial decisions for banks, it is imperative that banks and building societies recognise the needs of all their customers, including those who still need to use in-person services. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)’s guidance is clear that firms are expected to carefully consider the impact of planned branch closures on their customers’ everyday banking and cash access needs, and put in place alternatives, where this is reasonable. This seeks to ensure the implementation of closure decisions is done in a way that treats customers fairly. Where firms fall short of expectations, the FCA may ask for closures to be paused or other options to be put in place. Alternative options to access everyday banking services can be via telephone banking, through digital means such as mobile or online banking and via the Post Office or Banking Hubs. The Post Office allows personal and business customers to carry out everyday banking services at 11,500 Post Office branches across the UK. Banking Hubs are a voluntary industry initiative, which enable customers of participating banks to access cash and banking services in shared facilities. As such, decisions regarding their operation, including opening hours, are taken by participating banks. Over 100 Banking Hubs have been announced so far, including in Sidmouth. 33 Banking Hubs are already open across the UK, and the Government hopes to see the others open as soon as possible.

Bank Services: Business

Tim Farron: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he is taking steps to prevent banks from providing (a) financial and (b) investment support to business which derive income from industrial livestock companies with low animal welfare practices.

Bim Afolami: The UK has a world-leading record on animal welfare, and the government has introduced a range of measures to ensure animals receive the care, respect, and protection they deserve. This includes providing grants to farmers towards capital equipment that improves animal welfare and banning the export of live animals for fattening and slaughter. The government has recently announced its intention to consult on proposals to strengthen animal welfare labelling in the food sector. We are also protecting animals abroad by banning the import of hunting trophies from endangered animals and the advertisement of unacceptable low-welfare animal practices abroad. The decisions about what products are offered and to whom remain commercial decisions for banks and building societies.

Soft Drinks: Taxation

Angus Brendan MacNeil: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much the Soft Drinks Industry Levy has raised since 2018.

Gareth Davies: Since its introduction in April 2018, the provisional total for revenue raised from the Soft Drinks Industry Levy up to and including December 2023 is £1820 million. The complete set of figures can be found in Table 1 of the HMRC tax receipts and National Insurance contributions for the UK publication at the following link: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmrc-tax-and-nics-receipts-for-the-uk

Home Office

Crossbows

Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the number of crossbows in the UK; and what plans he has to (a) categorise crossbows as firearms and (b) restrict the ownership of crossbows.

Chris Philp: It is not possible to estimate the number of crossbows in the United kingdom as there is no license or registration scheme for the sale or ownership of crossbows.The Home Office has undertaken a review into whether there should be further controls on the use of crossbows on public safety grounds, which was commissioned at the end of 2021 by the, then, Home Secretary, the Right Honourable Priti Patel MP.The review has been completed and we will announce the outcome shortly.

Drugs: Empty Property

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the cultivation of illegal drug farms in abandoned commercial properties.

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that people who are arrested for suspected drug cultivation are assessed for signs that they may have been (a) coerced and (b) exploited by others.

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance his Department issues to (a) police and (b) immigration authorities on working together to tackle the intersection of (i) drug cultivation and (ii) immigration offences.

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help prevent the risk of (a) fires, (b) floods, (c) structural damage to buildings and (d) other dangers potentially caused by illegal drug cultivation.

Chris Philp: Drugs devastate lives, ruin families and damage communities.The Government's ten-year Drugs Strategy demonstrates our commitment to cut off the supply of drugs, reduce their recreational use and make the UK a significantly harder place for organised crime groups to operate in. Through our end-to-end plan to tackle drug supply, we are tackling the supply of drugs at every level from production overseas to cultivation in the UK. Our approach recognises that the organised criminals behind drug cultivation are often involved in a range of wider offences including firearms, money laundering, slavery and human trafficking.Our immigration enforcement officers routinely work alongside police where there is evidence of immigration offences, to support prosecutions and to protect vulnerable persons who may face exploitation from criminal enterprises. Additionally, police work locally with a range of other agencies to mitigate the wider societal harms caused by the illicit drug trade.Working with the National Crime Agency, the Regional Organised Crime Unit network and a range of agency partners, police in England and Wales coordinated Operation Mille - the most significant operation of its kind aimed at disrupting organised crime groups by dismantling large-scale cannabis farms – a key source of illicit income for organised crime gangs. Throughout June of 2023, police executed over 1,000 search warrants, arresting hundreds of individuals and seized 20 firearms, over £635,000 in cash and over 180,000 cannabis plants worth around £130 million. Of those arrested, more than 450 were later charged with a range of offences. The Home Office provided police with £1.5m funding in 2023/24 to support Operation Mille.Through the Modern Slavery Act 2015, the government introduced a statutory defence against prosecution for victims of modern slavery who, for adults, were compelled to carry out criminal offences as a result of their exploitation and, for children, committed offences as a direct result of being a victim. The section 45 defence was designed to provide further encouragement to victims of slavery to come forward and give evidence without fear of being convicted for offences connected to their slavery or trafficking situation which can include drug cultivation.Following the European Court of Human’s Rights judgment in the case of VCL and AN in July 2021, the positive obligation on the police to identify and investigate whether a suspect may be a potential victim of slavery or trafficking from the outset of an investigation was further strengthened through national guidance and training.

Motor Vehicles: Romford

Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he has taken to help reduce automobile theft in (a) the UK and (b) Romford constituency.

Chris Philp: The Government is committed to tackling theft of and from vehicles. The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that neighbourhood crime is down 48% in the year ending September 2023 when compared to the year ending March 2010.We are working closely with police and motor manufacturers through the National Vehicle Crime Working Group, chaired by ACC Jennifer Sims, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vehicle crime, to take forward a programme of work to prevent and reduce vehicle crime nationally. This includes training police officers on methods used to steal vehicles, encouraging vehicle owners to secure their vehicles and working with industry to prevent theft. The Metropolitan Police Service is represented on the Working Group.A network of vehicle crime leads has been established in every police force in England and Wales, ensuring forces share information about emerging trends in vehicle crime and are better able to tackle regional issues.We are legislating through the Criminal Justice Bill to create two new offences where a person possesses, makes, adapts, supplies or offers to supply electronic devices where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they will be used in vehicle theft. The legislation will make it easier for police to prosecute criminals making and supplying these devices, as well as vehicle thieves.

Visas: Married People

Steve McCabe: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make it his policy to maintain the minimum income threshold level for spouse visas in place on 1 February 2024.

Tom Pursglove: On 4 December 2023 the Home Secretary announced his intention to raise the MIR to £38,700, aligned to the level at which the General Skilled Worker threshold is set.On 30 January 2024, the Minister of State for Legal Migration and the Border confirmed the Immigration Rules we intend to lay on 14 March will set out that from 11 April 2024 the minimum income threshold for Family visas will be raised to £29,000, that is the 25th percentile of earnings for jobs which are eligible for Skilled Worker visas. We will incrementally increase the threshold, moving to the 40th percentile (currently £34,500), and finally to the 50th percentile (currently £38,700, and the level at which the General Skilled Worker threshold is set) by early 2025.It is important that the changes are delivered in a sensible and pragmatic way that gives families time to adapt, but ensures they deliver the reduction in numbers the British people expect.This change will not be applied retrospectively to people already on the five-year partner route. Those who already have a Family visa within the five-year partner route, or who apply before the minimum income threshold is raised, will continue to have their applications assessed against the current income requirement and will not be required to meet the increased threshold. This will also be the case for children seeking to join or accompany parents.Anyone granted a fiancé(e) visa before the minimum income threshold is raised will also be assessed against the current income requirement when they apply for a Family visa within the five-year partner route. Those already in the UK on a different route, who apply to switch into the five-year partner route after the MIR has been increased, will be subject to the new income requirement.

Asylum: Christianity

Dr Caroline Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of asylum claims in which the applicant cites Christian belief as a reason for asylum (a) on arrival and (b) after arriving in the UK in each of the last 10 years; and what assessment he has made of trends in number and proportion of asylum claims in which the applicant cites Christian belief as a reason for asylum (i) on arrival and (ii) after arriving in the UK over that period.

Tom Pursglove: Information regarding an individual’s reasons for claiming asylum is not recorded in a reportable format. We are reviewing whether we could collect and publish data in this area.

Biometric Residence Permits: Standards

Sir Mark Hendrick: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether there is a cost implication to (a) his Department and (b) Serco of biometric residence permit cards being issued with errors.

Tom Pursglove: This information is not publicly available and can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

Refugees: Ukraine

Beth Winter: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the future of those resident in the UK on Ukrainian sponsorship schemes beyond the schemes' expiration.

Tom Pursglove: The UK Government is, of course, mindful that permission for the first arrivals under the Ukrainian schemes will start to expire from March 2025, and that Ukrainians in the UK, as well as their hosts and sponsors, are understandably seeking more certainty to help them continue to settle in the UK and live independently. The Home Office continues to work closely with colleagues across government, our European counterparts and the Ukrainian Government, on options for the future of theUkraine schemes. We will ensure that Ukrainians here in the UK are informed about the options available to them in good time before the expiry of the first Ukraine scheme visas.

Asylum: Poverty

Sir Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the level of support provided to asylum seekers on levels of poverty among asylum seekers.

Tom Pursglove: The Home Office has a legal obligation to meet the essential living needs of destitute asylum seekers. Support is usually provided in the form accommodation and a weekly allowance. Additional support is also available to pregnant women, young children, and individuals who have exceptional needs over and above those of the average supported asylum seeker or their dependants.The level of the allowance is reviewed each year to ensure it covers an individual's “essential living needs”. Full details of the items that are considered essential are set out in reports on gov.uk. Following the 2023 review, allowances have increased for many supported individuals including pregnant women and young children.

Derwentside Immigration Removal Centre: Children

Mr Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether children will be detained at Derwentside immigration removal centre.

Tom Pursglove: Derwentside immigration removal centre, currently a female only centre, will be converted into a facility for men in due course. There is no intention for children to be detained at Derwentside.

Biometric Residence Permits: Standards

Olivia Blake: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of biometric residence permits issued in (a) the last 12 months and (b) each of the previous 10 years contained errors; what his Department's target time is for correcting such errors; and what the average time taken to correct such errors was in each of the last 12 months.

Tom Pursglove: This information is not publicly available and can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

Prisoners: Repatriation

Ruth Cadbury: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign national offenders who were removed from the UK were imprisoned for (a) sexual offences, (b) homicide and (c) assault in each year since 2019.

Michael Tomlinson: The information requested about how many foreign national offenders (FNOs) were removed from the UK following convictions for (a) sexual offences, (b) homicide and (c) assault is not available from published statistics. The Home Office does publish information on a quarterly bases on FNO returns and this can be found at Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Our priority will always be to keep the British public safe. That is why foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crimes should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them. Between January 2019 and September 2023, more than 16,000 FNOs have been removed from the UK.

Immigration Controls: EU Countries

Stella Creasy: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has issued guidance on reasons that EU citizens with a valid passport may be refused entry to the UK.

Tom Pursglove: The guidance used by Border Force officers is published on the Government website Visiting the UK as an EU, EEA or Swiss citizen - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). A person with a valid EU passport can still be refused if they don’t satisfy these requirements set out in the guidance.

Charter for Families Bereaved through Public Tragedy

Gareth Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what public bodies have signed the Hillsborough Charter.

Chris Philp: As set out on 6 December 2023, in the Government's response to Bishop James Jones' independent report, many organisations have already signed the Hillsborough Charter, including the National Police Chiefs’ Council, College of Policing, Crown Prosecution Service, Fire Service, and Kensington and Chelsea Council.This Government will encourage and work with other public bodies to adopt the Charter and commit to learn the lessons of the Hillsborough disaster, to ensure that the failings we saw in its aftermath are never repeated.

Immigration Controls: EU Countries

Stella Creasy: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of EU citizens who were refused entry at the border intended to enter the UK for (a) leisure or tourism, (b) work or employment, (c) self-employment, (d) study, (e) temporarily (i) attending a conference and (ii) engaging in other work, (f) visiting family and (g) any other reason in 2023.

Stella Creasy: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many individuals from (a) EU 14, (b) EU 8, (c) EU 2, (d) other EU nations and (e) all other European nations presented at the border requesting entry to the UK in 2023.

Tom Pursglove: Border Force does not hold the data requested in an easily accessible format. However, the Home Office published data can be found at the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65563413544aea0019fb2eab/passenger-arrivals-admissions-summary-sep-2023-tables.ods.

Prisoners: Repatriation

Ruth Cadbury: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign national offenders were removed from the UK with more than 12 months remaining on their sentence under the Early Removal Scheme in 2023.

Tom Pursglove: The information requested about how many foreign national offenders (FNO)s removed from the UK with more than 12 months remaining on their sentence under the Early Removal Scheme in 2023 is currently not available from published statistics. Information on the number of FNOs that were returned from the UK under the Early Removal Scheme is available from Table FNO_09 in Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The latest data is published to June 2022.

Organised Crime

Dan Jarvis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to Answer of 23 January 2024 to Question 8437 on Organised Crime, what his Department's timescale is for the publication of the cost of Serious and Organised Crime.

Tom Pursglove: The Home Office will update the figure this year once data for financial year 2022/23 is available across all the SOC crime areas. We estimate that a research report on the cost of serious and organised crime will be completed and ready for publication in 2025.

British National (Overseas): Voluntary Work

Elliot Colburn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of allowing British National (Overseas) passport holders to undertake voluntary work as (a) sportspersons and (b) sports coaches.

Tom Pursglove: The restriction on working as a professional sportsperson applies to those holding permission on certain visa routes, including the British National (Overseas) visa. If an individual meets any of the indicators listed in the definition of a professional sportsperson at Paragraph 6 of the Immigration Rules, they are classified as such, and if the restriction on work as a professional sportsperson is present in their visa conditions, they would therefore be breaching the terms of their visa.However, it is not this Government’s intention to restrict anyone coming to the UK and taking part in sport recreationally. ‘Amateur’ is defined in the Immigration Rules as:““Amateur” means a person who engages in a sport or creative activity solely for personal enjoyment and who is not seeking to derive a living from the activity.”

Armed Forces: Foreign Nationals

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many non-UK citizens who served in the Armed Forces for (a) four and (b) five years applied for indefinite leave to remain and had to pay visa fees in (i) 2021, (ii) 2022 and (iii) 2023.

John Healey: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the total sum paid by the dependents of non-UK citizens was who served in the armed forces for (a) four and (b) five years and were granted indefinite leave to remain in (i) 2021, (ii) 2022 and (iii) 2023.

Tom Pursglove: We do not publish this data in the format required.

Fraud: Conferences

Dan Jarvis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress (a) his Department and (b) the Security Minister have made on preparations for the global fraud summit.

Tom Tugendhat: The Global Fraud Summit will be held in London on 11-12 March. It will bring together international ministers, industry leaders, law enforcement, and multilateral organisations to signal our commitment to work together to tackle fraud.The Home Secretary will host the Summit.

Money Laundering: British Overseas Territories

Dan Jarvis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps officials in his Department are taking with their counterparts in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to tackle money laundering in British Overseas Territories.

Tom Tugendhat: Illicit finance is an active and growing threat to the UK family and can undermine our national security, prosperity, and democracy. As set out in the 2023 Economic Crime Plan 2 (ECP2), tackling economic crime is a high priority for the UK Government, including in the Overseas Territories (OTs).ECP2 commits the UK Government to using our diplomatic and technical influence to further strengthen partnerships with other financial centres, particularly in the OTs. The Home Office, alongside other government departments such as HM Treasury and law enforcement partners, has supported the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) to strengthen our strategic dialogue and technical cooperation with the OTs on a range of economic crime threats such as countering sanctions evasion and money laundering.The Home Office and FCDO also work together on supporting beneficial ownership transparency in the OTs. The Home Office will continue to support the FCDO on this important agenda.

Defending Democracy Taskforce: Disinformation

Dan Jarvis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Defending Democracy Taskforce is taking to help reduce disinformation at the next general election.

Tom Tugendhat: The Government is committed to safeguarding the UK’s elections and already has established systems and processes in place, to protect the democratic integrity of the UK.DSIT is the lead department on artificial intelligence and is part of the Defending Democracy Taskforce which has a mandate to safeguard our democratic institutions and processes from the full range of threats. The Taskforce ensures we have a robust system in place to rapidly respond to any threats during election periods.Furthermore, the Online Safety Act places new requirements on social media platforms to swiftly remove illegal misinformation and disinformation - including artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes - as soon as they become aware of it. The Act also updates Ofcom’s statutory media literacy duty to require it to take tangible steps to prioritise the public's awareness of and resilience to misinformation and disinformation online. This includes enabling users to establish the reliability, accuracy, and authenticity of content.Finally, the threat to democracy from artificial intelligence was discussed at the AI Safety Summit in November 2023, reinforcing the Government’s commitment to international collaboration on this shared challenge.

Home Office: Public Appointments

Dan Jarvis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 18 January 2024 to Question 8979 on Home Office: Public Appointments, what his Department's timescale is for the publication of the outcome of the recruitment process for the role of the Independent Advisor for the Defending Democracy Taskforce and Open-Source Intelligence Hub.

Tom Tugendhat: In line with similar appointments, the Home Office will publish the outcome of the recruitment process for the role of the Independent Advisor for the Defending Democracy Taskforce and Open-Source Intelligence Hub.The Government will publish the outcome at the earliest opportunity.

Alcoholic Drinks: Minimum Unit Prices

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for her Department's policies of the report by Public Health Scotland entitled Evaluating the impact of minimum unit pricing for alcohol in Scotland, published on 27 June 2023.

Chris Philp: The Government notes the recent outcome report from Public Health Scotland.The Government will continue to monitor emerging evidence with interest.

Metropolitan Police: Ukraine

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has had recent discussions with the Metropolitan Police on their role in gathering of evidence of war crimes in Ukraine.

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has had discussions with the Metropolitan Police on seeking evidence of war crimes committed in Israel on 7 October 2023.

Chris Philp: Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) has national responsibility in the UK for investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity and this is carried out by the War Crimes Team (WCT). There is an ongoing operation to identify, capture and triage evidence in support of investigations by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other relevant jurisdictions regarding possible war crimes, crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine since 21st November 2013. The Home Secretary regularly discusses priority security issues with CTP, including War Crimes investigations relating to the war in Ukraine [most recently in January 2024].To gather evidence of war crimes, the Metropolitan Police SO15 War Crimes Team has worked with Ukrainian Community Groups in the UK, completing a number of appeals for witnesses through traditional and digital media platforms. The UK has embedded a dedicated Met Police liaison officer in The Hague to facilitate information sharing from the UK to the ICC.The Home Office continues to support the work of the International Criminal Court to ensure allegations of war crimes are fully and fairly investigated, by independent, effective and robust legal mechanisms.

Police: Finance

Alistair Strathern: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department plans to complete its review of the police funding formula before the end of this Parliamentary session.

Chris Philp: The Government is clear on the need to review the distribution of funding across forces in England and Wales, which is why we are undertaking a review of the formula. We have engaged closely with the policing sector on an evidence-based assessment of policing demand and the relative impact of local factors on forces, and this work remains ongoing.Our priority is to deliver a robust, future-proofed funding formula that allocates funding in a fair and transparent manner. Although we are working to introduce new funding arrangements as soon as feasible, their quality and longevity is our focus.

Visas: Overseas Students

James Daly: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) student and (b) student dependent visa applications were received by his Department in the first two weeks of January (i) 2023 and (ii) 2024.

Tom Pursglove: Our published data on student and student dependent visa applications up to September 2023 can be found in the available migration statistics on GOV.UK: www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables#entry-clearance-visas-granted-outside-the-ukFigures up to 31 December 2023 will be published in the next release. January 2024 figures will be published in due course.

House of Commons Commission

Parliamentary Estate: Road Traffic Control

Mr Gregory Campbell: To ask the hon. Member for Broxbourne, representing the House of Commons Commission, how much has been spent on traffic marshals in the last six months.

Sir Charles Walker: In the last six months, £920,101 (plus VAT) has been spent on traffic marshals. This figure includes use of traffic marshals to manage the movement of traffic and/or pedestrians (a) in the Palace and along the spine road, (b) in and out of the underground car park, and (c) on laundry road in the Northern Estate. The underground car park currently requires 24/7 marshal cover to support the closure of one of the ramps into the car park, so the cost also includes unsociable working hours, bank holidays and weekends.This does not include costs where it has not been possible to extrapolate the cost of marshal provision from the overall contract for works.

Parliamentary Estate: Road Traffic Control

Dr Thérèse Coffey: To ask the hon. Member for Broxbourne, representing the House of Commons Commission, how much has been spent on traffic marshals in each financial year from 2019-20 to 2022-2023; and what the estimated spend is for financial year 2023-24.

Sir Charles Walker: The figures below reflect the spend on traffic marshals for each financial year (April to March) from 2019 to 2024.The figures include use of traffic marshals to manage the movement of traffic and/or pedestrians (a) in the Palace and along the spine road, (b) in and out of the underground car park, and (c) on laundry road in the Northern Estate. The figures are all excluding VAT.The figures below do not include costs where it has not been possible to extrapolate the cost of marshal provision from the overall contract for works. Financial years 2019 to 2023 2019–2020 £176,0692020–2021 £199,4712021–2022 £257,5342022–2023 £598,534 Financial year 2023–2024The costs for the 2023–2024 financial year are not comparable to the previous years.Prior to 2023–24 the cost of the traffic marshals for the underground car park, required to facilitate the works in New Palace Yard, was covered by the contractor, as part of the project costs, and not included above. These costs are now covered by the House directly as efficiencies had been identified.The underground car park requires 24/7 cover due to the closure of one of the ramps into the car park necessary to facilitate the works in the New Palace Yard. The costs include unsociable working hours, bank holidays and weekends.For the 2023–2024 financial year, the cost for traffic marshals, excluding underground car park marshals, is forecast to be £647,763.For the same period, the cost for the underground car park marshals is forecast to be £1,271,966.

Cabinet Office

Public Sector: Cybersecurity

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Government's cyber security measures in protecting public sector organisations.

Alex Burghart: The Government prioritises public sector cyber security, which is why in April 2023 GovAssure was launched. Under GovAssure, government organisations regularly review the effectiveness of their cyber defences against common cyber vulnerabilities and attack methods. We are currently evaluating the first year’s assessments.GovAssure will enable government organisations to accurately assess their levels of cyber resilience across their critical services, highlight priority areas for improvement and provide the Government with a strategic view of cyber capability, risk and resilience across the sector.With its foundations in the National Cyber Security Centre’s Cyber Assessment Framework, GovAssure will help us to understand our risk at scale and put us on the pathway to reducing it, as well as aligning Government with the best practice in management of wider UK Critical National Infrastructure sectors.

Government Departments: ICT

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what criteria his Department uses to determine the security standard of hardware devices before they are purchased by Government.

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what his Department's policy is on the security requirements for endpoint devices procured by the public sector.

Alex Burghart: The Government Cyber Security Standard requires government organisations to meet or exceed the security outcomes specified in the Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) developed by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). This includes specific security outcomes in relation to the secure configuration and management of devices.As the CAF is outcomes-based, it does not specify which commercially available devices meet these security requirements or which vendors government organisations should buy their devices from. That is a matter for government organisations to determine locally, in consultation with their commercial, security and IT teams, based on their organisation’s business needs, risk tolerance and threat profile.In addition, in November 2023 we published the cross-government Mobile Device Management policy to help government organisations and their Arms Length Bodies keep their corporately owned mobile devices secure and prevent data breaches. NCSC also provides guidance on how to securely configure devices from each of the most commonly used platforms.

Public Sector: Cybersecurity

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of incorporating device security in public sector risk management strategies.

Alex Burghart: The Government Cyber Security Standard requires government organisations to meet or exceed the security outcomes specified in the Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) developed by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).One of the four objectives which make up the CAF is managing security risk; this objective covers a range of security outcomes in relation to organisations’ internal processes for managing security risk, accountability and decision-making and managing assets such as corporate devices. The CAF also includes specific security outcomes in relation to the secure configuration and management of devices.In November 2023 we published the cross-government Mobile Device Management (MDM) policy to help government organisations and their Arms Length Bodies keep their corporately owned mobile devices secure and prevent data breaches. This policy is mandatory for all government organisations and Arms Length Bodies. It requires them to manage corporately owned mobile phones and tablets which access, process or store OFFICIAL government and/or citizen data via critical systems using an appropriate MDM solution.

Public Sector: Cybersecurity

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department has taken to improve the cyber resilience of public services.

Alex Burghart: We are working extensively to improve the cyber resilience of public services, particularly through the Government Cyber Security Strategy. As part of this, in April 2023 we launched GovAssure, which introduced stringent new measures for Government cyber security to be reviewed against. We have also published the Cyber Policy Handbook and the Secure by Design Framework, as well as soft launching the Government Cyber Coordination Centre (GC3), to share best practice and embed it throughout the UK’s public services.

Public Sector: Procurement

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Procurement Act 2023 on strengthening cyber security requirements for public tenders.

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the Procurement Act 2023 for tackling cybersecurity threats in public tenders.

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an assessment of the impact of the National Procurement Policy Statement, published in June 2021, on cybersecurity in public sector procurement processes.

Alex Burghart: The Procurement Act 2023 brings in new powers to exclude and debar companies from public procurement on grounds of national security. The new National Security Unit for Procurement (NSUP), in the Cabinet Office, will work across government to coordinate assessments of companies and support ministers in national security debarment decisions. In addition, Procurement Policy Note 09/14 requires central government contracting authorities to ensure that for contracts with certain characteristics, suppliers must meet the technical requirements prescribed by Cyber Essentials, including where suppliers store, or process, personal information or data at Official level. The Cabinet Office encourages all organisations to follow National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) guidance which sets out the security matters to be considered during the procurement process. The National Protective Security Agency (NPSA) has also published guidance to prevent hostile actors exploiting vulnerabilities in supply chains. The National Procurement Policy Statement sets out the national priorities that all contracting authorities should have regard to in their procurement where it is relevant to the subject matter of the contract and proportionate to do so. The current statement does not include cyber security as a separate, wider policy because the need for cyber security protection is fundamental to procurements where it applies and therefore built into the procurement process as described above. The new legislative statement that will come into force alongside the Procurement Act is currently being drafted and will be subject to a consultation process as set out in Section 13 of the Act.

Waste Disposal: Vacancies

Helen Morgan: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has made an estimate of the number of local council waste collector vacancies in each year since 2015.

John Glen: The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. A response to the Hon lady’s Parliamentary Question of 31st January is attached and I have placed a copy of the datasets in the Libraries of the House.UK Statistics Authority (pdf, 108.0KB)

Sikhs

Preet Kaur Gill: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the report by the Office for National Statistics entitled Equalities data audit, final report, published on 25 October 2018, how many and what proportion of the datasets audited as part of that process included data on Sikhs.

John Glen: The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. A response to the Hon lady’s Parliamentary Question of 5th February is attached. UK Statistics Authority (pdf, 116.5KB)

Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Public Libraries: Fees and Charges

Richard Fuller: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will have discussions with local authorities on the long-term effect of the speaking of Welsh of inter-library loan charges for Welsh language books.

Julia Lopez: Public libraries are funded and run by local authorities. It is for each local authority to determine operational matters such as its stock management policy, including participation in an inter-library loan service. This is a co-operative and voluntary agreement among libraries which allows books and other materials from one library to be loaned out to a user from another.Library services providing an inter-library loan service can apply charges for all book titles requested for borrowing from other library services, and are not limited to Welsh language books.

Gambling: Young People

Carolyn Harris: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the study by Gabriel A. Brooks and Luke Clark entitled, The gamblers of the future? Migration from loot boxes to gambling in a longitudinal study of young adults, published in Computers in Human Behaviour, volume 141, in April 2023.

Stuart Andrew: His Majesty’s Government struck a balanced and evidence-led approach in our review of gambling regulation. We continue to monitor research, and have carefully considered the findings in this study. We recognise that there is a growing body of research that provides evidence of an association between loot box purchases and gambling activity, as well as evidence of a link with a variety of harms, including harmful gambling. However, research has not established whether a causal relationship exists, and there are a range of plausible explanations.In order to address gaps in research around these and similar areas, we have developed and published the Video Games Research Framework to support high quality independent research into video games, including loot boxes. We are also introducing a statutory levy charged to gambling operators which will raise trusted, long-term funding for gambling research. We are clear that we will continue to look carefully at any further research that results from that and take action if necessary.

Swimming Pools

Helen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 1 February 2024 to Question 11912, how many local authority swimming pools have opened in each region in each year since 2015.

Stuart Andrew: 245 local authority swimming pools have opened since 2015. The breakdown per region is as follows:East Midlands: 27Eastern: 21London: 36North East: 15North West: 29South East: 44South West: 20West Midlands: 28Yorkshire and the Humber: 25

Gambling: Regulation

Jamie Stone: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies on gambling regulation of (a) Omaze and (b) other companies that engage in lottery-stylegiveaways outside of the scope of existing regulation.

Stuart Andrew: The Gambling White Paper, published in April 2023, set out the Government's intention to explore the potential for regulating types of large prize draws, which resemble society lotteries, but are not regulated as gambling products. Because these products are not regulated there is currently limited information about the sector. As stated in the response to PQ 152, the department has also commissioned independent researchers to gather evidence about the size and nature of the prize draw sector, including its role in charity funding, risks and player protection and understanding. The research consists of an AI-powered web scrape, together with industry surveys and operator engagement. The research will conclude shortly and will inform a consultation on potential regulation in due course.

Football: Regulation

Dr Rupa Huq: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will take steps to include anti-racism teaching in the objectives of the independent regulator for English football.

Stuart Andrew: The Regulator’s primary strategic purpose will be to ensure that English football is financially sustainable for the benefit of fans and the local communities football clubs serve. This approach was set out in the football governance white paper, the Government’s subsequent consultation response, and the Government’s response to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee’s report on football governance. As such, the Regulator will focus on the financial sustainability of clubs, the financial resilience of the football pyramid, and safeguarding club heritage. Industry is therefore best placed to lead on such issues, and I continue to engage closely with football authorities on these important topics.

Ministry of Justice

Young Offender Institutions: Prison Accommodation

Janet Daby: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average number of hours spent out of their cell by inmates on (a) weekdays and (b) weekend days was in each young offender institution in December 2023.

Janet Daby: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 5 December 2023 to Question 5312 on Young Offender Institutions, if he will publish on a monthly basis the average number of hours spent out of their cell by inmates on (a) weekdays and (b) weekend days in each young offender institution.

Edward Argar: The information currently available is noted on the table below, as stated in hours and minutes. To note, these are average time-out-of-room in young offender institutions and do not account for any refusals to engage with activities, as offered. The figures below were calculated during December 2023. Cookham WoodFelthamParcWerringtonWetherbyWeekdays02:5604:3910:0503:5705:41Weekends02:1903:3808:5402:4603:57Overall02:4404:1909:4203:3405:07]We recognise the importance of ensuring that time in custody is purposeful and are committed to ensuring that children and young people have the necessary and appropriate access to education, skills, and work provision with a consistent daily programme of activities. The Youth Custody Service continues to review regime models and staff deployment to maximise time-out-of-room, with a focus on recruitment and retention to support this delivery.There are currently no plans for regular publication of statistics on time-out-of-room.

Prisoners: Foreign Nationals

Ruth Cadbury: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign national offenders of each offence type there are in the male prison estate.

Ruth Cadbury: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign national offenders in the male prison estate have committed (a) homicide and (b) sexual offences as of 5 February 2024; and how many had committed those offences as of 1 January (i) 2023, (ii) 2022, (iii) 2021, (iv) 2020 and (v) 2019.

Edward Argar: The removal of Foreign National Offenders is a Government priority. We removed 16,676 foreign national offenders between January 2019 and September 2023. Published figures show that FNO returns have increased in the latest 12-month period (ending September 2023) by 19% when compared to previous 12-month period (3,577 compared to 3,011).We have recently announced measures to further increase removals including the extension of the Early Removal Scheme window to 18 months; working closely with Home Office to facilitate timely removals and using diplomatic pressure to conclude bilateral Prison Transfer Agreements with specific countries. The requested information can be found in the attached spreadsheet. The prison population data published in the most recent Offender Management Statistics Quarterly publication are based on the prison population ‘as at 31 December 2023’. Any request for data ahead of this relates to data intended for future publication. In this case, the requested data (‘as at 5 February 2024’) relates to data intended for publication as part of the next Offender Management Statistics Quarterly release (scheduled for publication on 25 April 2024), and so is not available at this time.FNOs (xlsx, 16.9KB)

Repossession Orders: Wales

Liz Saville Roberts: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department is taking steps to restore the Possession Claim Online service (a) for properties in Wales and (b) in the Welsh language.

Liz Saville Roberts: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent estimate he has made of when the Possession Claim Online service will be made available (a) for properties in Wales and (b) in the Welsh language.

Mike Freer: As a result of the Renting Homes Wales Act 2016 introduced by the Welsh Government, implemented in December 2022, changes to the Possession Claim Online (PCOL) service are required for users making a claim for possession of a property located in Wales.Work is ongoing between HMCTS and Welsh Government to agree the scope and funding of these changes to ensure compliance with the legislation.PCOL is currently available in the Welsh language and this will continue to be the case when the service is resumed for properties located in Wales.

HM Courts and Tribunals Service: Members

Tonia Antoniazzi: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average time is for hon. Members to receive a response from His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service on casework queries.

Mike Freer: In the period January – June 2023, HMCTS issued 74% of responses to honourable Members’ casework queries within 15 working days. 91.5% were responded to within 20 working days.Published data is available on Gov.uk - Data on responses to correspondence from MPs and peers - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Probate

Richard Foord: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average waiting time was for probate cases to be processed in (a) 2021-22, (b) 2022-23 and (c) in the latest period for which data is available.

Richard Foord: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the impact of trends in average waiting times for processing probate applications on the financial well-being of recipients.

Mike Freer: The average mean length of time taken for a grant of probate, following receipt of the documents required, is:a) 7.3 weeks in 2021-22b) 7.8 weeks in 2022-23c) 12.5 weeks during July to September 2023The majority of grants issued (digital, non-stopped) in July to September were completed within 7 weeks on average. HMCTS is focused on reducing the time for all types of applications to bring down the overall average waiting times.Average waiting times for probate grants are routinely published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly and currently cover the period up to September 2023.HMCTS are aware of the impact that timeliness has on the financial well-being of recipients and has increased staffing levels, streamlined internal processes and continued to invest in further improving the digital service.As a result, grant output for recent months has been at record levels, with over 12,000 more grants issued than applications received during the last three months (September to November) using more recent management information published by HMCTS (which does not go through the same level of quality assurance and analysis as the Family Court Statistics Quarterly).

Ministry of Justice: Carbon Emissions

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what targets his Department has set to help achieve the Government's commitments on net zero.

Mike Freer: The Government set out how we would meet our commitments in the Net Zero Strategy in 2021 which included a detailed breakdown of actions required across all sectors in the economy. This was updated in 2023 through the publication of 'Powering Up Britain'.The UK has halved its emissions, ahead of every other major economy, and we have grown our economy by over 70% since 1990. The UK over-achieved against the first and second carbon budgets, and the latest projections show that we are on track to meet the third.We have one of the most ambitious decarbonisation targets in the world, and we have set more stretching targets for 2030 than most countries. We plan to cut emissions by 68% by 2030, which is more than the EU, Japan or the United States. The Ministry of Justice continues to support Government’s commitment to achieve Net Zero by 2050 or sooner and we have already reduced our total carbon emissions by 28% to March 2023 (against a 2017-18 baseline).

Northern Ireland Office

Barristers: Northern Ireland

Jim Shannon: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what recent discussions he has had with his counterpart in Northern Ireland on trends in the number of barristers working in Northern Ireland since 2019.

Mr Steve Baker: This is a devolved matter for the Northern Ireland Department of Justice. The Secretary of State has had no recent discussions on this issue.

Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

District Heating

Matthew Pennycook: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, when she plans to bring Part 8, Chapter 1 of the Energy Act 2023 into force.

Amanda Solloway: The Department consulted on heat network consumer protection requirements in 2023 and will respond to the consultation shortly. Heat network regulation will be introduced in three phases: In 2024 Ofgem will engage the market and develop their digital systems. In Spring 2025 the initial tranche of consumer protection requirements enter into force covering standards of conduct for heat network operators In 2026 all other protections enter into force including price benchmarking regulation.

Small Businesses: Carbon Emissions

Jim Shannon: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the potential merits of introducing funding to help small businesses implement infrastructure changes to help them cut their emissions.

Amanda Solloway: The Government recognises that small businesses are keen to cut emissions and tackle climate change but require support to do so. Business support for net zero is mostly devolved to the Devolved Administrations and Local Authorities. However, the Government, in partnership with the West Midlands Combined Authority, is currently piloting a Business Energy Advice Service offering small and medium-sized enterprises free advice and funding for energy and emissions savings measures. The Government also recently launched Phase 3 of the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF) which provides grant funding towards the cost of projects that reduce industrial energy consumption and carbon emissions through investment in energy efficiency and low carbon technologies.

Energy: Taxation

Caroline Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of targeted exemption of energy bill levies on (a) households using electric heating and (b) the take up of heat pumps.

Amanda Solloway: In ‘Powering Up Britain’, the Government committed to outlining a clear approach to price rebalancing by the end of 2023/24 and making significant progress affecting relative prices by the end of 2024. No decisions have yet been taken on that approach. We are committed to ensuring that the cost of transition to Net Zero is fair and affordable for all energy consumers. The potential impacts of rebalancing across technologies and consumers will be fully considered.

Warm Home Discount Scheme: Disability

Alexander Stafford: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, pursuant to the Answer of 18 January to Question 9113, if she will take steps to further extend the eligibility for the warm home discount to cover more disabled households.

Amanda Solloway: The Government reformed the Warm Home Discount scheme in England and Wales to standardise the criteria, provide the majority of rebates automatically, and focus the support to households in fuel poverty.As the scheme is funded by participating energy suppliers, we have struck a balance between supporting as many households as possible, providing meaningful support, and limiting the impact on wider consumer bills. This winter we expect over 3 million households to receive the rebate, around a million more households compared with the previous scheme prior to winter 2022.We recognise the cost-of-living challenges families are facing, which is why we are spending £104 billion supporting households with bills.

Fuel Poverty: Disability

Alexander Stafford: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, pursuant to the Answer of 18 January 2024 to Question 9112 on Fuel Poverty, whether the review of the Fuel Poverty Strategy will consider energy costs for disabled people who use powered medical equipment at home.

Alexander Stafford: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, pursuant to the Answer of 18 January 2024 to Question 9112 on Fuel Poverty, if she will hold discussions with disability charities on the review of the Fuel Poverty Strategy.

Alexander Stafford: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, pursuant to the Answer of 18 January 2024 to Question 9112 on Fuel Poverty, if she will hold a public consultation as part of the review of the Fuel Poverty Strategy.

Amanda Solloway: As part of the review of the Fuel Poverty Strategy, Government will assess how the vulnerability principle has been implemented since 2021 and whether any amendments are needed for an updated Fuel Poverty strategy including for households where an occupant has a disability. Government has a statutory duty to consult relevant stakeholders before publishing an updated version of the Fuel Poverty Strategy. Government intends to seek views from a range of stakeholders, including disabilities charities. I have previously met with Scope, among other organisations, as part of an initial roundtable on reviewing the strategy.

Energy: Housing

Philip Dunne: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will make an estimate of the proportion of households that are (a) dual fuel, (b) connected to mains gas only and (c) connected to mains electricity only.

Philip Dunne: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will make an estimate of the number of households (a) connected to mains electricity only and (b) in fuel poverty.

Amanda Solloway: I refer my Hon Friend to the answer I gave on 1 February to Question 11454 and 11455. These figures are published in Table 10 of the Fuel Poverty Statistics here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fuel-poverty-statistics#2022-Statistics

North Sea Oil: Shetland

Caroline Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to the Answer of 24 October 2023 to Question 202952 on North Sea Oil: Shetland, on what evidential basis she said that Rosebank will be significantly less emissions-intensive than the current average of producing assets; and if she will make an estimate of the total lifespan emissions from this project.

Graham Stuart: Equinor estimates that Rosebank will produce oil at around 12 kg CO2/barrel, compared to a UK offshore production average of over 20 kg CO2/barrel. Rosebank will be electrification-ready, and Equinor anticipates the emissions would reduce to 3kg CO2/barrel after electrification. I refer the Hon Member to Equinor’s analysis on Rosebank, the North Sea Transition Authority’s 2023 Emissions Monitoring Report and data Dashboard highlighting the emissions intensity of production for the UK Continental Shelf, and published regulatory decision documents on the environmental effects of Rosebank.

Warm Home Discount Scheme: Disability

Richard Foord: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment she has made of the impact of the withdrawal of the Warm Homes Discount on (a) people in receipt of disability benefits and (b) other vulnerable people.

Amanda Solloway: I refer the hon. Member to the answer my noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance gave on 17 April 2023 to Question HL7050. In addition, the Government produced impact assessments for the consultation in 2021 on expanding and reforming the Warm Home Discount scheme in England and Wales and for the publication of the Government Response in 2022, which are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/warm-home-discount-better-targeted-support-from-2022

Pipelines: Scotland

Kenny MacAskill: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, who is responsible for the costs of maintenance of the oil pipeline from Finnart to Grangemouth.

Andrew Bowie: The Finnart pipeline is owned and operated by Petroineos. Any maintenance works and their associated costs are the responsibility of the company.

Pipelines: Scotland

Kenny MacAskill: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what is the status of the Finnart to Grangemouth oil pipeline; and if she will make an estimate of the potential cost to the public purse for reopening the pipeline.

Andrew Bowie: As Petroineos own and operate the two pipelines between Grangemouth refinery and the Finnart terminal, they are responsible for operating and maintaining the refinery, as well as any associated costs. The current status and use of the pipeline is a matter for the company. Public money is not being used to fund the private commercial matter of repair to this pipeline.